Artifact Details

Description

Grant Saviers received his B.S. and M.S. in engineering (computing) from Case Western Reserve University in 1968 where he had his first computer experiences on Univac I & 1107 and Burroughs 220.

He then joined Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) starting in PDP-9 engineering, then a “task force” of 1 to rescue a troubled disk drive project. Over a 15 year career in storage, he advanced through management to where, as Corporate Vice President of Storage, he built an industry leading organization with a profitable $4 B in revenue. He was responsible for DEC’s for disk, tape, optical, system memories, controller, database, and hardware & subsystems businesses in five United States and three international locations as well as procurement of selected storage products on an original-equipment-manufactured basis (at one point the single largest purchaser in the world of such equipment).

As DEC’s Corporate Vice President of PC Systems and Peripherals from 1990 to 1992 Grant successfully restarted DEC’s PC business from a dormant state and grew revenues to $350M and break-even profitability in 18 months. Responsible for PC’s, networks, software, terminals and printers.

In 1992 He joined Adaptec, a SCSI/RAID products & software company, as a chief operating officer, and president in 1992, becoming CEO in 1995 and chairman in 1997. During his tenure Adaptec profitably grew from $200M to $1B.

Grant is a member of the museum’s Board of Trustees and a volunteer member of it’s IBM 1401 restoration team. He is active in Amateur Radio including “DXpeditions” to activate stations in remote parts of the world. After 20 years in Silicon Valley, Grant now resides in Seattle, WA.

Part 1 of this oral history covers Grant’s early years and his career to 1990 in storage at DEC.

Part 2 of this oral history then begins with his becoming responsible for PC’s at DEC.

Date

2019-10-30

Contributor

Gardner, Tom, Interviewer

Saviers, Grant, Interviewee

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, CA, USA

Extent

36 p.

Format

PDF

Category

Transcription

Subject

DEC; Adaptec; OEM; Shugart; Memorex; Quantum Storage; Hard disk drives; Tape drive; optical disk drive; CD-ROM; DECtape; VAX; Digital Storage Architecture (DSA); Storage Interconnect (SI); Plated media; Embedded servo

Collection Title

CHM Oral History Collection

Lot Number

X6162.2011

Related Records

102746014	Saviers, Grant oral history, part 1 of 2
102795788	Saviers, Grant oral history, part 2 of 2