honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, April 8, 2001



The life and times of Adtech

 •  Adtech faces growing pains

Advertiser Staff

Birth (Oct. 10, 1967)

University of Hawai'i professors Ned Weldon, Tom Roelofs and Shu Lin cook up a scheme for a "think factory" that would flesh out bright ideas by developing real products. Roelofs and Lin soon drop out, leaving Weldon and wife Kathryn. The company moves from Roelofs' St. Louis Heights garage to a cubbyhole above a travel agency on South King Street.

The early years (1967-early 1980s)

Adtech's first project: An anti-smoking device, prepared for a local psychologist, that would shock him every time he took a puff. Other projects include a tuna tracking system, a sand grain analyzer, and an odometer testing device. Adtech moves to an office above a Ke'eaumoku Street bar, then to its own place on Algaroba Street.

Adolescence (1980s)

The company scores its first national hit: the Multivision Composer, a slide-show programmer that could control 24 slide projectors at once. "The system of the future is here today!" proclaims an early ad. By the mid-1980s, Multivision is a national leader in the slide-show programmer market. By the early 1990s, the division has ceased to exist.

Meanwhile, Adtech engineers start work on a test simulator for a high-speed satellite system — an early foray into network testing equipment.

Maturation (1990s)

Adtech engineers realize high-speed networks are the thing of the future. In 1993, they talk their way into a contract with a skeptical NTT, the Japanese equivalent of Ma Bell, and complete their first high-speed telecommunications network test system, the AX/3000, with minutes to spare before a shipping deadline. It works. The modern Adtech is born. The company moves to Kaimuki, expands and is acquired in 1997 by multinational technology company Bowthorpe PLC, now Spirent Communications.