Location
The company was initially headquartered in San Carlos, California, and started with only $22,000 in funding. It had problems raising additional capital, particularly due to Russell's insistence that the company be owned by its employees and his related refusal to accept outside investors. Hansen mortgaged his home for $17,000 to raise additional cash, and the group sought out additional funds from their friends. Ultimately, however, the company raised $120,000 of necessary capital via an offer of stock to all employees, directors, consultants, and a few sympathetic local investors who shared the company's goals. Military contracts for technology deemed necessary during the Cold War, including some classified projects, also helped the firm succeed. In 1953, Varian Associates moved its headquarters to Palo Alto, California, at Stanford Industrial Park – noted as the "spawning ground of Silicon Valley" – and was the first firm to occupy a site there.
On April 2, 1999, the company spun off its Gloucester, Massachusetts ion-implantation equipment business into Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates and its Palo Alto based scientific instrument business into Varian, Inc. The medical equipment business, which included the manufacture of x-ray tubes in Salt Lake City, Utah, renamed itself Varian Medical Systems, Inc. and remained headquartered in Palo Alto. After the breakup O'Rourke served as Varian Semiconductor's chairman. Varian, Inc., was later acquired by Agilent Technologies in May, 2010.
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