Glen Parmelee Robinson, Jr. (September 10, 1923 – January 16, 2013), called the "father of high-tech industry in Georgia", was an American businessman and founder of Scientific Atlanta, now a subsidiary of Cisco Systems. Robinson was the first employee of Scientific Atlanta, where he remained CEO then Chairman of the company until he retired.
Initially a ham radio enthusiast and subsequently a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) with both bachelor's and master's degrees in physics, Robinson worked at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory before founding Scientific Atlanta. Later in life, he founded and invested in numerous Atlanta-based science-related companies. Robinson was named an IEEE Fellow and held at least 39 patents in fields including solar energy devices and antenna systems.
For his contributions, he was named Georgia's Small Businessman of the Year in 1965, the Georgia Business and Industry Association's Entrepreneur of the Year in 1981, and was elected to the Georgia Technology Hall of Fame in 1993. In 2003, Georgia Tech awarded him an honorary Ph.D. in Physics, and in 2007, half of Georgia Tech's Molecular Science and Engineering Building was named the Glen P. Robinson, Jr. Tower in his honor.
Early life and education
Robinson was born on September 10, 1923, in Crescent City, Florida, an outskirt of Jacksonville, to Glen Parmelee and Laura Mae (Lewis) Robinson. His family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, in 1937. After attending high school at Marion Military Institute in Alabama, Robinson opened a small machine shop in Valdosta. He sold industrial products and metal tools to local industry. In 1942, with the encouragement of his father, Robinson enrolled as a student at the Georgia Institute of Technology to study chemical engineering. However, his education was interrupted by his enlistment into the Naval Signal Corps and service in the Pacific Theatre of World War II where he installed telephones on recaptured American possessions during the war.
Robinson returned from the conflict as a junior and in 1948 he changed his major to physics, as the School of Physics started its degree program that year. He received a Bachelor of Science in Physics in 1948, and a Master of Science in Physics (also from Georgia Tech) in 1950. Robinson was also a member of Georgia Tech's prestigious secret society, ANAK. Robinson had been a ham radio operator enthusiast since the age of 14, and started a radio repair service to provide additional income while he was a student at Georgia Tech.
One of Robinson's professors, James E. Boyd, convinced him to give up the radio repair business and work as a research assistant at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (then known as the Engineering Experiment Station, or EES). One of his ham radio friends was actually his boss's boss and EES director, Gerald Rosselot. Working after hours at EES, Robinson built a television set in the lab, which he and others claim was the first to be built in the state of Georgia. In 1950, Robinson went to Tennessee to work in nuclear engineering for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, servicing radiology-related equipment at local hospitals.
Scientific Atlanta
Robinson and six other Georgia Tech researchers (including Robinson's former professor James E. Boyd and EES director Gerald Rosselot) each contributed $100 (for a total of $700) and founded Scientific Associates on October 31, 1951, with the initial goal of marketing antenna structures being developed by the radar branch of the EES to the U.S. military. Robinson worked as the unpaid general manager for the first year. The relations between Scientific Associates and the EES were initially strained due to an unrelated dispute over station finances between EES director Gerald Rosselot and Georgia Tech vice president Cherry Emerson. Specifically, Emerson believed that surplus funds realized through research contracts should be returned to Georgia Tech, while the Georgia Tech Research Corporation and Rosselot felt they should be retained to foster additional research.