Engineering Research Associates (ERA) was founded in 1946 in an effort to continue the work of a classified war-time Navy cryptology unit called Communications Supplementary Activity -Washington (CSAW). A technological group, headed by former CSAW supervisors Howard T. Engstrom and William C. Norris, and former head of the Naval Computing Machine Laboratory Ralph I. Meader, joined with investment banker John Parker to establish the company. Parker was the former head of Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation (NAC), a St. Paul, Minnesota firm that made gliders during World War II. ERA established a small office in Arlington, Virginia, but the majority of ERA's workforce was located in the former NAC facility in St. Paul.
ERA became a division of Remington Rand in 1952. In 1955, Remington Rand and the Sperry Corporation merged to become the Sperry Rand Corporation and ERA became part of the company's Univac Division.
-
Bibliography
- "Engineering Research Associates: The wellspring of Minnesota's
computer industry" (St. Paul: Sperry Communications Dept., 1986).
- Tomash, Erwin and Arnold E. Cohen. "The Birth of ERA:
Engineering Research Associates Inc. 1946-1955." In Annals of the History of
Computing 1:2 (October 1979).
From the guide to the Lockheed Martin Legacy Committee collection of patent applications and associated documentation, 1952-1988., 1952-1988, (University of Minnesota Libraries. Charles Babbage Institute. [cbi])
