Coherent, Inc.

Coherent's mission is to focus on laser product innovations. Leveraging its competitive strengths in laser technology development, new product applications, engineering R & D and manufacturing expertise, Coherent is dedicated to customer satisfaction, quality and service. Coherent's mission is to continue its tradition of providing medical, scientific, commercial and OEM customers with cost effective laser products that provide performance breakthroughs and application innovations. Coherent's goals are to serve its customers, employees and stockholders. Specific goals include providing: customers with innovative products, superb technology, total quality, support and satisfaction; employees with a challenging, fulfilling place to work while expanding their skills and horizons; stockholders with consistent returns on equity capital and long-term growth in sales and earnings. Key Dates: Coherent, Inc. manufactures and sells lasers and laser-related products to the commercial, scientific, and medical markets. Coherent lasers, comprising the broadest range of products produced by any laser manufacturer, are used in a variety of applications, ranging from surgical procedures to the manufacturing of semiconductors. The company operates facilities at approximately two dozen sites in a number of foreign countries, deriving more than half its revenue from international sales. Sales and service sites are located in the United States, Mexico, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Hong Kong, and the Peoples Republic of China. The invention of the laser, an acronym for 'light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation,' represented one of the technological milestones of the 20th century. Developed at Bell Laboratories in 1958, the laser promised to ignite a technological revolution, its vast potential galvanizing the attention of scientists worldwide--one scientist in particular, physicist James Hobart. Hobart was intrigued by the possible applications for lasers, specifically the use of lasers in factory settings. He envisioned lasers performing tasks such as cutting and welding metal, but was unable to convince management at his place of employment, Spectra-Physics, Inc., to pursue the development of industrial lasers. Determined to see his ideas manifested, Hobart enlisted the help of five other individuals and started his own company. Coherent was founded in May 1966, when Hobart was in his early 30s. The company's start was modest, backed by the $10,000 Hobart and his associates were able to come up with for Coherent's start-up capital. With limited financial resources, the founders established company headquarters in the Palo Alto, California home of Eugene Watson, a former sales and marketing manager for Spectra-Physics. Initially, the most pressing need was for a 220-volt outlet to power the laser they intended to build, which forced Coherent's brain trust to build the laser in a laundry room, the only place in Watson's house with a suitable outlet. Next to a washer and dryer, Hobart and his colleagues began building Coherent's first product during the summer of 1966, using a piece of a rain gutter as one of the key components of their prototype industrial laser. Despite the somewhat crude methods of their homespun efforts, the entrepreneurs achieved remarkable results swiftly, compensating for their lack of resources with ingenuity. Four months after the company was founded, Coherent unveiled its first laser at the Westcon trade show, a precision instrument that had shed its rain gutter vestiges and evolved into a shiny, telescope-like device. More important than aesthetics, manufacturers were interested in Coherent's first product. The laser Coherent built during the summer of 1966 was the first carbon dioxide laser available commercially. The power output of the company's first product set a precedent, forcing Coherent to develop a power meter capable of measuring its power. The power