I have known Nathan Thomspon of Spectra logic – www.spectralogic.com – for many years, we share a common interest in aviation. Nathan’s company is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. I had dinner with the Spectra folks recently at the Super Computer conference in Portland.
Here is a snippet on an article in his local paper on the story:
Data-storage company started in a dorm room 30 years ago
By Alicia Wallace
Daily Camera
Posted: 12/14/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
As the founder and chief executive of a high-tech company, Nathan Thompson is used to looking forward, not back.
But he’s been doing a lot of the latter recently as his Spectra Logic Corp. — a Boulder- based data-storage company whose roots trace back to Thompson’s dorm room at the University of Colorado — marks 30 years in business.
In 1979, Thompson was a sophomore engineering major at CU when he withdrew the $500 that was in his bank account to start a memory-board manufacturer called Western Automation. In 1987, Western Automation bought the assets of a company called Spectra Logic, and the company reincorporated as Spectra Logic in 1993 because it was a better- known name in data storage, Thompson said.
The 30-year milestone is significant, Thompson and others say, considering the dynamic nature of the storage industry.
“It is kind of amazing . . . the degree to which companies have started and died — (companies) that were competitors or the hot company around here,” he said. “We’ve just sort of steadily marched along.”
Congratulations Nathan and all of Spectra Logic.
