Electro Scientific Industries
Encyclopedia
Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (ESI) (NASDAQ
: ESIO) is a high technology company headquartered in the Portland, Oregon
metropolitan area
, more specifically in Washington County
, in the unincorporated
Cedar Mill
area north of Beaverton
, U.S.A. It is a pioneer developer, and leading supplier, of photonic and laser systems for microelectronics manufacturers. Founded in 1944, it is the oldest high-tech company in Oregon
. Along with Tektronix
, and later Intel
, it has spawned numerous technology-based companies in the Portland area, an area known as the Silicon Forest
.
name "ESI" in marketing. The acronym stood for "excellent scientific instruments", but the company's name remained Electro Measurements Inc. until 1959, when it was changed to "ESI, Inc." and finally in 1960 to Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (ESI). Prior to about 2000, the company was usually referred to as having been founded in 1953. Doug Strain was the company's CEO
and board
chairman from 1953 until 1980 and remained on the board (continuing as chairman until 1985, then vice chairman) until fully retiring in 1999.
In the 1950s the company's specialty was the manufacture of high-precision resistance
measuring instruments and related products. In 1970 ESI began developing laser trimming
systems for resistor
circuits, and soon became a leader in this field.
All facilities were located at S.E. 43rd & Stark in Portland
until 1956, when the first stage of a new headquarters and manufacturing plant on Macadam Avenue, in South Portland, was opened. The new plant was destroyed by fire in 1957 and had to be rebuilt. In 1962 ESI announced plans to create a new development called "Sunset Science Park", to be built in the Cedar Mill
area of unincorporated Washington County, Oregon
, designed to attract other technology companies, with ESI as an anchor. The company moved its headquarters to the Sunset Science Park location in 1963, and the manufacturing facilities followed in 1966, vacating the Macadam Avenue site. The complex on N.W. Science Park Drive, which remains ESI's headquarters today, has a Portland mailing address, but is not in the city of Portland proper; it occupies unincorporated
land which is now adjacent to the city limits of Beaverton
.
ESI became a publicly traded company
in 1983. The company opened its first foreign sales office in 1978, in Munich
, Germany
, and later opened offices in several countries in Southeast Asia
. The company now has offices for direct sales in several European countries, as well.
Several small companies were acquired by ESI in the late 1990s, including Dynamotion Corp. (of California) in 1997, Chip Star Inc. (California) in 1997, Applied Intelligent Systems Inc. (AISI) (Michigan) in 1997 and Testec Corp. (Arizona) in 1999.
A new manufacturing facility was opened in Klamath Falls, Oregon
, in early 2001. The company acquired California-based New Wave Research Inc. in 2007. At the beginning of 2009, Electro Scientific had around 700 employees, about half of whom were located in Oregon.
, Tektronix
and other Washington County companies in an effort led by Nike
to convince the state legislature
to prohibit the practice of forcible annexation
of "islands" of unincorporated land that have become surrounded by a city. The Nike effort stemmed from an aggressive annexation policy being practiced by the city of Beaverton in 2004, under which the city had added more than 500 acres (2 km²) of unincorporated land, including the headquarters of Leupold & Stevens
(located almost adjacent to ESI, but on the opposite side of the Sunset Highway
freeway). Although the headquarters of ESI and Columbia are not on "islands" surrounded by Beaverton, both directly abut
the city boundary, and company officials were concerned about the likely eventual effect of the city's annexation practices should future annexations cause their properties to become part of such an island. The 2005 Oregon Legislature enacted a law prohibiting Beaverton from any forced island-type annexations for two years and additionally included language effectively banning Beaverton from forcibly annexing any of Electro Scientific Industries' property—whether an island or not—for at least 30 years.
systems. Manufacturing takes place at the headquarters campus and the Klamath Falls plant, as well as a plant in Fremont, California
, that was part of the acquisition of New Wave Research Inc. The company also has an engineering and development plant in Bozeman, Montana
.
The NASDAQ-traded company had annual revenues of $148.9 million for fiscal year 2010, a decrease from $157.3 the previous year. As of mid-2010, the company's biggest customer is Apple Inc., providing up to 30 percent of ESI's total sales for FY2010.
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
: ESIO) is a high technology company headquartered in the Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
metropolitan area
Portland metropolitan area
The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area , also known as the Portland metropolitan area or Greater Portland, is an urban area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington centered around the city of Portland, Oregon. The U.S...
, more specifically in Washington County
Washington County, Oregon
- Major highways :* Interstate 5* Interstate 205* U.S. Route 26* Oregon Route 6* Oregon Route 8* Oregon Route 10* Oregon Route 47* Oregon Route 99W* Oregon Route 210* Oregon Route 217* Oregon Route 219-Demographics:...
, in the unincorporated
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
Cedar Mill
Cedar Mill, Oregon
Cedar Mill is a census-designated place and an unincorporated community in Washington County, Oregon, mostly north of U.S. Route 26 and west of the Willamette Stone...
area north of Beaverton
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...
, U.S.A. It is a pioneer developer, and leading supplier, of photonic and laser systems for microelectronics manufacturers. Founded in 1944, it is the oldest high-tech company in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. Along with Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
, and later Intel
Intel Corporation
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
, it has spawned numerous technology-based companies in the Portland area, an area known as the Silicon Forest
Silicon Forest
Silicon Forest is a nickname for the cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Southwest Washington, and most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon.The name is similar to...
.
History
ESI was founded in 1944 as Brown Engineering, later becoming Brown Electro-Measurement Corporation (BECO). In 1953, BECO's Douglas C. Strain and three other investors bought out Strain's partners at Brown and formed a new company, Electro-Measurements Inc., which used the brandBrand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
name "ESI" in marketing. The acronym stood for "excellent scientific instruments", but the company's name remained Electro Measurements Inc. until 1959, when it was changed to "ESI, Inc." and finally in 1960 to Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (ESI). Prior to about 2000, the company was usually referred to as having been founded in 1953. Doug Strain was the company's CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
and board
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
chairman from 1953 until 1980 and remained on the board (continuing as chairman until 1985, then vice chairman) until fully retiring in 1999.
In the 1950s the company's specialty was the manufacture of high-precision resistance
Electrical resistance
The electrical resistance of an electrical element is the opposition to the passage of an electric current through that element; the inverse quantity is electrical conductance, the ease at which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical...
measuring instruments and related products. In 1970 ESI began developing laser trimming
Laser trimming
Laser trimming is the manufacturing process of using a laser to adjust the operating parameters of an electronic circuit.One of the most common applications uses a laser to burn away small portions of resistors, raising their resistance value...
systems for resistor
Resistor
A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...
circuits, and soon became a leader in this field.
All facilities were located at S.E. 43rd & Stark in Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
until 1956, when the first stage of a new headquarters and manufacturing plant on Macadam Avenue, in South Portland, was opened. The new plant was destroyed by fire in 1957 and had to be rebuilt. In 1962 ESI announced plans to create a new development called "Sunset Science Park", to be built in the Cedar Mill
Cedar Mill, Oregon
Cedar Mill is a census-designated place and an unincorporated community in Washington County, Oregon, mostly north of U.S. Route 26 and west of the Willamette Stone...
area of unincorporated Washington County, Oregon
Washington County, Oregon
- Major highways :* Interstate 5* Interstate 205* U.S. Route 26* Oregon Route 6* Oregon Route 8* Oregon Route 10* Oregon Route 47* Oregon Route 99W* Oregon Route 210* Oregon Route 217* Oregon Route 219-Demographics:...
, designed to attract other technology companies, with ESI as an anchor. The company moved its headquarters to the Sunset Science Park location in 1963, and the manufacturing facilities followed in 1966, vacating the Macadam Avenue site. The complex on N.W. Science Park Drive, which remains ESI's headquarters today, has a Portland mailing address, but is not in the city of Portland proper; it occupies unincorporated
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
land which is now adjacent to the city limits of Beaverton
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...
.
ESI became a publicly traded company
Public company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...
in 1983. The company opened its first foreign sales office in 1978, in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and later opened offices in several countries in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
. The company now has offices for direct sales in several European countries, as well.
Several small companies were acquired by ESI in the late 1990s, including Dynamotion Corp. (of California) in 1997, Chip Star Inc. (California) in 1997, Applied Intelligent Systems Inc. (AISI) (Michigan) in 1997 and Testec Corp. (Arizona) in 1999.
A new manufacturing facility was opened in Klamath Falls, Oregon
Klamath Falls, Oregon
Klamath Falls is a city in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. Originally called Linkville when George Nurse founded the town in 1867, after the Link River on whose falls this city sat, although no falls currently exist; the name was changed to Klamath Falls in 1892...
, in early 2001. The company acquired California-based New Wave Research Inc. in 2007. At the beginning of 2009, Electro Scientific had around 700 employees, about half of whom were located in Oregon.
Annexation fight
In 2005 ESI joined Columbia SportswearColumbia Sportswear
Columbia Sportswear Company is a United States company that manufactures and distributes outerwear and sportswear. It was founded in 1938 by the late Paul Lamfrom, father of present chairperson Gert Boyle. The company is headquartered in Washington County, Oregon, in an unincorporated part of the...
, Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
and other Washington County companies in an effort led by Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
to convince the state legislature
Oregon Legislative Assembly
The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the House of Representatives, with 60 members elected to...
to prohibit the practice of forcible annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
of "islands" of unincorporated land that have become surrounded by a city. The Nike effort stemmed from an aggressive annexation policy being practiced by the city of Beaverton in 2004, under which the city had added more than 500 acres (2 km²) of unincorporated land, including the headquarters of Leupold & Stevens
Leupold & Stevens
Leupold & Stevens, Inc. is a manufacturer of telescopic sights, red dot sights, spotting scopes, and binoculars located in Beaverton, Oregon, United States...
(located almost adjacent to ESI, but on the opposite side of the Sunset Highway
Sunset Highway (Oregon)
The Sunset Highway No. 47 , in the state of Oregon, is an official designation for the portion of U.S. Route 26 between its western terminus, south of Seaside, and the interchange with Interstate 405 in downtown Portland...
freeway). Although the headquarters of ESI and Columbia are not on "islands" surrounded by Beaverton, both directly abut
Abut
In property law, when two parcels abut it means they are adjacent to each other and against each others' borders....
the city boundary, and company officials were concerned about the likely eventual effect of the city's annexation practices should future annexations cause their properties to become part of such an island. The 2005 Oregon Legislature enacted a law prohibiting Beaverton from any forced island-type annexations for two years and additionally included language effectively banning Beaverton from forcibly annexing any of Electro Scientific Industries' property—whether an island or not—for at least 30 years.
Operations
ESI manufactures a variety of products for testing and repairing equipment, and particularly products designed for use by manufacturers of other high-tech products. These include laser trimmingLaser trimming
Laser trimming is the manufacturing process of using a laser to adjust the operating parameters of an electronic circuit.One of the most common applications uses a laser to burn away small portions of resistors, raising their resistance value...
systems. Manufacturing takes place at the headquarters campus and the Klamath Falls plant, as well as a plant in Fremont, California
Fremont, California
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
, that was part of the acquisition of New Wave Research Inc. The company also has an engineering and development plant in Bozeman, Montana
Bozeman, Montana
Bozeman is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The 2010 census put Bozeman's population at 37,280 making it the fourth largest city in the state. It is the principal city of the Bozeman micropolitan area, which consists...
.
The NASDAQ-traded company had annual revenues of $148.9 million for fiscal year 2010, a decrease from $157.3 the previous year. As of mid-2010, the company's biggest customer is Apple Inc., providing up to 30 percent of ESI's total sales for FY2010.
External links
- ESI stock quote and profile at Bloomberg Businessweek