Grass Valley (company) - History

History

Grass Valley was founded as a tiny research and development company in 1959 by Dr. Donald Hare in the small town of Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada range. Hare chose Grass Valley after learning about it from his friend, Charles Litton, Sr. In 1964, Grass Valley demonstrated its first video product, a Video Distribution Amplifier in a hotel room at the National Association of Broadcasters convention. By 1968, the Grass Valley Group had introduced its first vision mixer, the flagship product that helped build the company's reputation. The company merged with Tektronix in 1974, and was very successful for the next fifteen years. Then Tektronix sold its video business to a private investor, Terry Gooding of San Diego, California, who reincorporated it under the name Grass Valley Group, Inc. The sale closed on September 24, 1999.

In 2002, the French electronics giant Thomson Multimedia, now known as Technicolor SA, acquired Grass Valley Group. After coming under the ownership of Thomson, Grass Valley Group was forced to merge its product line with the existing professional and broadcast products of its new parent company, with mixed results. By 2008, the once-profitable Grass Valley division was operating at a net loss of over $100 million per year, and on January 29, 2009, Thomson announced that they were putting the Grass Valley division up for sale. In 2010, the Grass Valley business unit, not including the head-end and transmission businesses, was acquired by private equity firm Francisco Partners and resumed operating as an independent company on January 1, 2011.