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BOULDER -- Given its tradition of loyalty and paternalism, until the rash of layoffs and "golden parachutes" of the early 1990s, IBM spin-offs were nearly unheard of.
Storage Technology Corp. is one very high-profile exception.
Founded in 1969 by four young visionaries from IBM, it began the trend of storage device firms that now dot the Front Range.
In August 1969, in rented space above the now-defunct Aristocrat Steak House, Jesse Aweida, Zoltan Herger, Tom Kavanaugh and Juan Rodriguez hatched a plan to design and build better data storage systems for IBM mainframes. With $550,000 in venture funds, StorageTek's first product, the 2450/2470, a nine-track computer tape drive, shipped in 1970, 14 months after start-up, four months ahead of schedule.
By 1981, StorageTek occupied a half-million square feet of what grew to 2 million square feet at the Louisville campus, employed 13,000 people worldwide, and had revenues of $603 million.
Three years later, however, the company crashed, filing For Chapter 11 bankruptcy. New management led StorageTek to emerge from Chapter 11 in 1987, the biggest turnaround in computer history.
A major layoff in 1995 reduced employees worldwide to 8,400, but with 3,400 people in Colorado, StorageTek remains one of the largest private employers in Boulder County And, as if going full-circle, the company is once again headed by a former IBMer, David Weiss.