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John Diebel
John C. Diebel (born 1943) is the founder of telescope manufacturer Meade Instruments and a recipient of the Franklin Institute#The Benjamin Franklin Awards, Franklin Institute's Bower Award For Business Leadership. Meade Instruments Soon after receiving a doctorate in electronic engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Diebel landed an engineering job at Hughes Aircraft. It was there that he realized that he wanted to start his own business, and after doing some research in a public library, he concluded that he would start a small mail-order business selling products for amateur astronomy. In 1972, after procuring a loan of $2500, Diebel made his first purchase from a telescope supplier in Japan and placed an ad in ''Sky & Telescope'' magazine. Eventually, Diebel was able to quit his job at Hughes and work on his mail-order business from his one-bedroom apartment full-time. He named his company Mead, but eventually added the "e" at the suggestion of a co-worker a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meade Instruments
The Meade Instruments (also shortened to Meade) is an American multinational company headquartered in Watsonville, California, that manufactures, imports, and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, CCD cameras, and telescope accessories for the consumer market. It is the world's largest manufacturer of telescopes. Besides selling under its "Meade" brand name, the company sells solar telescopes under the brand "Coronado". Origins and history Founded in 1972 by John Diebel, Meade started as a mail order seller of small refracting telescopes and telescope accessories manufactured by the Japan-based Towa Optical Manufacturing Company. Meade started manufacturing its own line of products in 1976, introducing 6" and 8" reflecting telescopes models in 1977. In 1980, the company ventured into the Schmidt-Cassegrain market that up to that time had been dominated by Celestron Corporation. Meade has a long history of litigation with other companies over infri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
