Peninsula Engineering Group, Inc. ("PEGI") was an American company which was a pioneer in on-frequency microwave and cellular repeaters. From its founding in 1983 until its demise in 2002, the company was a technological leader in the field of low-cost on-frequency repeaters, and was awarded numerous patents. Peninsula Engineering Solutions, Inc. [1] is a successor company that continues to provide both new products and parts based on the PEGI designs. The company went through a few name changes; in 1992 it became "Peninsula Wireless Communications" and in 1995 again changed names to "Repeater Technologies."[2] ++INFOBOX++ PEGI's clients included telephone companies, cellular phone companies, utilities, governments, and other agencies around the world. The company was based in the San Francisco Bay Area and had an office in Beijing, China.
History edit
++ADVERT TAG++ The idea to start Peninsula Engineering Group was born on June 7, 1983. That morning, GTE announced that the Lenkurt facility in San Carlos, CA, was going to be closed. That afternoon, Product Planner (soon to be PEGI President) Barry Leff[1] met with Microwave Engineering Manager (soon to be PEGI VP Engineering) Ed Johnson[2] and discussed starting a company based on keeping the GTE Lenkurt microwave engineering team together in a new company.
The team first started out as temporary employees of Rockwell Collins, finishing the development of a radio for them. After a few months, Rockwell Collins management was favorably impressed with the team, and tried to convince the team to join Rockwell on a permanent basis. On the one hand Rockwell offered a steady paycheck; on the other hand Barry and Ed were offering the excitement of a start-up and some stock — but no salaries for a while! Truly in the spirit of Silicon Valley — and perhaps expressing unfounded faith in the leaders who had never run a company before! — everyone on the team signed up to join the new company. There was a sort of "shoot-out at the OK Corral" when Barry and Ed got tired of all the indecision over what to do, and told people those who signed by the end of a certain day would get more stock. That did the trick to get everyone to sign up.
The company was incorporated in October 1983. When they finished the project for Rockwell and started operations as an independent company they were located in Redwood City, California. On their first day of business the company had no money, an order for $50,000 (from GTE), fifteen engineers, one business person (Barry) and a secretary. Since the company didn't have any money to start with, they were very creative with fund raising. In addition to getting employees to work for stock for some months, they figured out a clever way to buy the complex test equipment they needed to build sophisticated communications equipment. GTE held an auction, and some employees took second mortgages on their homes to buy equipment at auction, which they then leased to the company. When the company got on firmer financial footing, it bought the equipment from the employees. The experiences they went through in financing the company served as inspiration for Barry Leff to explore the subject in greater detail; his doctoral dissertation at Golden Gate University was titled "Financing the Start-up of Silicon Valley High-Tech Companies."[3]
The company's initial product was a "new and improved" version of the GTE Lenkurt 2 GHz RF Repeater which had been invented some years earlier by John Oades. The repeater offered a very low cost and efficient way to get around obstacles in a Microwave link.
The company completed their first year of business with sales of over $700,000 and a very small profit -- but they were in the "black." In April 1985 Barry and Ed flew Barry's Cessna_172(RG model) into Boeing_Field, Washington for a meeting with New Vector Communications (later part of AirTouch. Elliott Drucker[4] from New Vector called Barry and said "we've heard about your 2 GHz repeater, do you think you could do something at 800 MHz?" Barry and Ed talked about it and said "sure, just bring money!" After meeting, New Vector agreed to fund the development of an 800 MHz on-frequency RF repeater, which led to PEGI getting into the cellular business, which was to become their major focus.
Patents edit
++CLEANUP TAG++
Split Bank Filter for Cellular Mobile Radio, Patent Number 4783843. Inventors Barry Leff, Ed Johnson, and Joseph Lutz. One of the earliest patents for a cellular repeater, issued November 1988.[3]
Apparatus and Method for Expanding Cellular System Capacity, Patent Number 5187806. Inventors Ed Johnson and Barry Leff. An early microcell patent, filed in 1990.[4]
External links edit
- http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/Thomson_Venture_Economics/Peninsula_Engineering_Group_Inc-Y4907
- http://www.peninsulaengineering.com/PES_slideshow.pdf
- http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel2/832/1551/00040126.pdf?temp=x
- http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel2/757/5022/00195379.pdf?arnumber=195379
- http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4783843.html
- http://peninsulaengineering.com/
- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BMD/is_193_8/ai_92648332
- http://securities.stanford.edu/1021/RPTR01-01/
- http://www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news/jan_02/news_1736.shtml