Raytheon Headquarters Office
Raytheon Co
870 Winter Street Waltham, Massachusetts 2451, United States
Get directions
Raytheon offices
Contacts
Customer service: +1 866-729-6271 / +1 781-522-3000
Website: www.raytheon.com
Executives
Dr. Thomas A. Kennedy (Chairman/CEO)
Businesses History
Raytheon Co is a technology company in defense industry. It develops technological and integrated products, services and solutions in core markets: sensing; effects; command, control, communications, computers, cyber and intelligence; among others.
In 1922, two former Tufts engineering college roommates Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, along with scientist Charles G. Smith, founded the American Appliance Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its focus, which was originally on new refrigeration technology, soon shifted to electronics. The company’s first product was a gaseous (helium) rectifier that was based on Charles Smith’s earlier astronomical research of the star Zeta Puppis.
The electron tube was christened with the name Raytheon and was used in a battery eliminator, a type of radio-receiver power supply that plugged into the power grid in place of large batteries. This made it possible to convert household alternating current to direct current for radios and thus eliminate the need for expensive, short-lived batteries.
In 1925, the company changed its name to Raytheon Manufacturing Company and began marketing its rectifier, under the Raytheon brand name, with great commercial success. In 1928 Raytheon merged with Q.R.S. Company, an American manufacturer of electron tubes and switches, to form the successor of the same name, Raytheon Manufacturing Company. In 1933 it diversified by acquiring Acme-Delta Company, a producer of transformers, power equipment, and electronic auto parts. By the 1930s, it had already grown to become one of the world’s largest vacuum tube manufacturing companies.
