Min H. Kao
Background
Min H. Kao served as a lead electrical engineer at Magellan Navigation in the late 1980s when he realized that the military’s GPS technology could be miniaturized and commercialized for civilian use, a realization that led him to partner with Gary Burrell and found Garmin in 1989 with a vision for portable, affordable GPS navigation.
Role at Garmin Ltd.
Garmin possesses a technical, engineering-focused founding story, born out of the complex world of American defense contracting and the earliest days of satellite navigation. The company was founded in 1989 in Lenexa, Kansas, by Gary Burrell and Min Kao (the company name is a simple portmanteau of their first names: Gar-Min). Both men were brilliant electrical engineers working for King Radio (which later became AlliedSignal), a manufacturer of complex aviation electronics. During the 1980s, the US Department of Defense was building the multi-billion dollar Global Positioning System (GPS), a constellation of satellites originally intended strictly for military use. Min Kao who was heavily involved in integrating early GPS technology into military aircraft, possessed a visionary realization: if the government ever opened GPS to civilian use, it would change the world. He believed they could build a miniaturized, affordable GPS receiver for everyday people. He and Gary Burrell left their secure corporate jobs, essentially betting their entire careers on this unproven commercial market. Their foundational breakthrough occurred during the 1991 Gulf War. Because the US military desperately lacked enough military-grade GPS units for its ground troops, Garmin received urgent orders from the government for their civilian units. The undeniable utility of the Garmin GPS-100 on the battlefield proved the commercial viability of the technology. From that initial military contract, Burrell and Kao expanded into aviation, marine, and eventually automotive navigation, transforming a complex, classified military technology into a globally indispensable consumer utility.