Lester Hogan

Who was Lester Hogan?

Clarence Lester "Les" Hogan was an American physicist and a pioneer in microwave and semiconductor technology.

He grew up as a brother to three sisters in Great Falls, Montana, where his father worked for the Great Northern Railway. After graduating from Montana State University with a degree in chemical engineering he joined the United States Navy in 1942. He did some work on acoustic torpedoes in Chesapeake Bay, and when being approached by Bell Laboratories, subsequently went to the Pacific theatre to train submarine crews in the use of that technology.

After the war he did post-graduate studies at Lehigh University and obtained a Ph.D. in Physics. He then joined Bell Labs in 1950. A couple of months later he invented the Microwave Gyrator. He worked under Bill Shockley, inventor of the transistor and Nobel Prize laureate. From 1953 through 1958 he was a professor at Harvard University, when he was asked by Dan Noble to join Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona as Vice President and General Manager of the semiconductor operation.

In 1968 he moved to Fairchild Camera & Instrument as Chairman and CEO, taking eight senior executives with him.