Career
Upon graduating in 1937 he joined the General Electric Company (GEC) research laboratories, at that time one of the leading industrial research centres, to work on the company's new television receivers. In spite of the turmoil of the emerging electronics industry, for the rest of his career he remained with GEC. With the outbreak of war the GEC laboratories were soon in the forefront of radar development and Clayton's expertise was quickly applied to the development of airborne radar equipment. When the BBC resumed television service from Alexandra Palace after the war GEC won the important contract to implement the first link to another transmitter at Birmingham. This was based on Clayton's advanced proposal for a microwave radio relay. He coerced the rest of the laboratories to assist in bringing television to Birmingham on time in 1950.
In 1955 GEC invited Clayton to establish its new Applied Electronics Laboratories at Stanmore to create a defence electronics capability, initially centred on developing missile guidance systems for the Royal Navy. By 1963 all the diverse GEC activities in electronics were brought together with Clayton as managing director. At this point Arnold Weinstock took control of the vulnerable GEC and with government encouragement embarked on the rationalization of the fragmented UK electrical industry. He soon recognized that Clayton could provide the necessary technical input to his own financial acumen and in 1968 appointed Clayton technical director of the enlarged company. Clayton continued in this role, while turning his attention from streamlining the overlapping activities of the acquired companies to future ventures. However, Weinstock's growing financial caution was a limiting factor and after Clayton joined the main board in 1978 he acted mainly in an advisory role and as the technical presence of the GEC on major issues, until he retired in 1983.
During the period of rationalization of the UK electronics industry he was often perceived as a hard man who implemented Weinstock's plans. Equally, others saw him as protecting the essential research and development activities and endeavouring to move GEC into areas of future growth—often against a company culture of short-termism.
Read more about this topic: Robert James Clayton
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