PALO ALTO — For 60 years, Roy Clay Sr. has had a Midas touch about the direction of technology. At age 80, he’s got a new tip for investors — back technology manufacturing in the United States.
Made in the U.S.A. by Rod-L Electronics
Clay has practiced what he’s preached for more than 30 years as one
of the last companies to make its own products in Silicon Valley. Rod-L Electronics here is the global leader in
electronic test equipment.
The Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame member is featured in the
new documentary Freedom Riders of the
Cutting Edge, which told of how he overcame the rejection of being
told in 1951 that McDonnell Aircraft “had no jobs for professional
Negroes.” By 1956, he was programming the aircraft maker’s first
computer.
By 1961, he managed Control Data’s Cobol and Fortran programming and
1965, he was hired by David Packard as Hewlett Packard’s first research
and development manager for computers. There he designed the first
fault-tolerant computer to handle reservations for Holiday Inn.
Following Tom Perkins into the venture capital field, Clay was involved
iin some of the first big venture deals such as Tandem, Intel and Compaq
as a technology consultant to Kleiner Perkins. Much of this
groundbreaking work was done while most blacks could not get a seat at a
lunch counter, much less a bird’s eye view of the beginnings of Silicon
Valley.
Clay’s journey to Silicon Valley in 1958 to program computers for
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory was as much a part of the civil rights
movement as the Montgomery bus boycott.
His commitment to equity in innovation springs from his family
background. His father Charles Clay was one of the founders of the
all-black town of Kinloch, on the outskirts of St. Louis. In that
nurturing environment, the younger Clay learned math while counting
craps in the billiard parlor and became the first black student to
receive a degree in mathematics from St. Louis University.
“I sought a position in private industry and sent my resume to McDonnell
Aircraft,” recalls Clay in an interview in Freedom Riders. “They
called me in for an interview based on the resume, but when I arrived,
they told me, “We’re sorry, Mr. Clay, but we have no jobs for
professional Negroes.’
The documentary relates the change by 1965, when Hewlett Packard brought
Clay back for multiple interviews and several increased pay offers in
order to lure him to join the firm.
“David Packard had an opportunity to buy Digital Equipment for $25
million, but he decided to start his own computer business instead,”
recalls Clay.
The technology legend also shared those highlights of his career for the
opening sessions of the Catapult Innovation and Learning initiative, a
nationwide series of events geared to raise the profile of the 616,000
African-Americans working in information technology. Like Clay, most
labor in obscurity. However, during workshops in Fremont and
Oakland, Clay received proclamations from the mayor of Fremont and from
the chairman of the California Legislative Black Caucus. He was also
recognized last year by the City of Palo Alto, where he was the first
black member of city council. Clay also was the first black member of
San Francisco’s exclusive Olympic Club.
Clay helped inspire, with the late Dr. Frank Greene, a fellow African-American among
the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame, the annual 50 Most
Important African-Americans in Technology, which observed its 10th
anniversary this year. Selectees decided to undertake the Catapult
series after their symposiium on Jan. 15 to put a spotlight on black
technical achievement for new entrepreneurs, policy makers, investors
and students.
Rod-L was begun to help start a new city, just as his father had done
before him. Clay was involved in the incorporation of East Palo Alto, a
mostly black area like Kinloch in the 1970s. He realized it needed an
employment base, so he started Rod-L.
In the past 30 years, he’s hired more than 75 East Palo Alto residents,
even some without high school degrees, by working the OIC-West
organization. “If we don’t hire people here, who’s going to buy the
computers,” asks Clay.
Catapult includes an innovation competition designed to spur more
African-American innovators like Clay to build cutting edge, world-class
companies which create jobs. Not only does California have a high
unemployment rate, but most African-American communities suffer from
disproportionate joblessness.
Having successfully bet on the talent of those communities, Clay
suggests that other investors should again follow his lead.
Details of the competition will be announced at events in Newark, N.J.
on March 31, Atlanta, GA on April 15 and in Los Angeles, CA on April 23.For more details, call 415-240-3537
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Author: Innovation and Equity
