Founded about 1946 by Harry Berthold Boller (1915-1997) and Clyde Cuthbertson Chivens (1915-2008).[1] the company was acquired in 1965 by
Perkin-Elmer.[2]
In the 1950s, Boller and Chivens collaborated with Perkin-Elmer to develop and manufacture the large-aperture
Baker-Nunn satellite tracking camera for the United States
Vanguard space satellite program.[3]
^Approximate year of founding is given by Peter Abrahams in a blog posting reproduced at
[1]Archived 2021-11-27 at the
Wayback Machine. Harry Boller and Clyde Chivens were engineers with degrees from
California Institute of Technology. See Oral History Transcript - Dr. Ira Bowen, August 26, 1969, at
[2]Archived 2015-02-14 at the
Wayback Machine. (Chivens was in the Class of 1935. See Clyde Chivens obituary, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Ca, March 4, 2008. See also California Institute of Technology, Engineering and Science, "News of Classes," Volume 1:4, March 1938, at
[3]. Chivens worked in the
Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II. See Folder 2.9 containing OSRD report by Chivens in Guide to the Joseph Foladare Papers, 1943-1946 at
[4].) Harry Boller and Clyde Chivens were also associated in a firm called High Vacuum Electronics (later called Kilovac, now part of
Tyco Electronics), incorporated in California in 1964. See articles of incorporation at
[5]Archived 2012-05-03 at the
Wayback Machine. A photo of Chivens (left), Boller (center) and Baker-Nunn camera co-developer
Joseph Nunn (right) may be viewed at
"Archived copy". Archived from
the original on 2011-06-17. Retrieved 2009-12-05.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link). Birth and death dates from
Social Security Death Index.