Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush was one of the most consequential American scientists and science administrators of the 20th century. At the time of Raytheon's founding, he was an electrical engineering professor at MIT working on analog computing and power transmission problems. His scientific credibility was instrumental in attracting early investors to American Appliance Company, and his technical contributions helped validate the rectifier product's viability. Bush left active Raytheon involvement as his academic and government responsibilities grew. He later became the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, effectively the architect of the U.S. Government's entire wartime scientific mobilization — including, critically, the radar programs in which Raytheon played such a central manufacturing role.

Vannevar Bush's connection to Raytheon's origins is a fascinating footnote to one of the most important scientific careers in American history. As a co-founder of the company that became Raytheon, Bush represented the academic-industrial connection that characterized the early American electronics industry. His subsequent career — as the wartime science czar who coordinated the Manhattan Project, the development of radar systems, and dozens of other wartime research programs — intersected indirectly with Raytheon's own wartime expansion in magnetron production. Bush's famous 1945 report, 'Science — The Endless Frontier,' which laid the intellectual foundation for the National Science Foundation and postwar U.S. Science policy, was written by someone who had seen firsthand, from the founding of Raytheon onward, how scientific knowledge could be translated into industrial and military capability.