Laurence "Larry" Spitters is an American industrialist and investor who co-founded

Memorex Memorex Corp. began as a magnetic tape, computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer ele ...

. Spitters began his career as an investment banker with Blyth & Co. in 1954 and worked on

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

before transferring to Blyth's office in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. During his tenure at Blyth he was a member of the

underwriting Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liabilit ...

and

investment banking Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...

department and was engaged in the origination, underwriting, and syndication of issues of corporate securities for public distribution, private placement of securities with institutional investors, and evaluation of companies involved in

merger and acquisition Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

transactions. In 1958, he joined

Ampex Corporation Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

, a firm whose financing he had assisted while previously employed at Blyth & Co. As Assistant to the Vice President and Treasurer at Ampex, he spearheaded Ampex's

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

(IPO) in 1959. In addition, he led Ampex's study to merge with Orr Industries, a magnetic tape manufacturing affiliate. In 1960, he was made Ampex's Assistant Treasurer where he worked closely with the firm's founder

Alexander M. Poniatoff Alexander Matveevich Poniatoff (russian: Александр Матвеевич Понятов, tr. ''Aleksándr Matvéjevič Ponjatóv''; 25 March 1892 – 24 October 1980) was an American electrical engineer. Poniatoff was born in 1892 in Russkay ...

, particularly in the company's merger with Telemater Magnetics, Inc., a

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

-based manufacturer of magnetic cores, buffers, and memories for data processing and computer systems.

Memorex

In 1961, Laurence (Larry) Spitters founded

Corporation in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

, along with three engineers from Ampex ( Arnold T. Challman, Donald F. Eldridge, W. Lawrence Noon) in order to enter the precision

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...

market. Memorex was the first company to manufacture

chromium dioxide Chromium dioxide or chromium(IV) oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula CrO2. It is a black synthetic magnetic solid. It once was widely used in magnetic tape emulsion. With the increasing popularity of CDs and DVDs, the use of chromiu ...

cassettes in substantial volume. In addition, Memorex entered the

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

systems business by first establishing its presence as a supplier of products that were

plug compatible Plug compatible refers to " hardware that is designed to perform exactly like another vendor's product." The term PCM was originally applied to manufacturers who made replacements for IBM peripherals. Later this term was used to refer to IBM-com ...

to IBM

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

systems and then using its established sales and service capabilities to offer complete computer systems. Memorex's

disk drive Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...

division, led by

Alan Shugart Alan Field Shugart (September 27, 1930 – December 12, 2006) was an American engineer, entrepreneur and business executive whose career defined the modern computer disk drive industry. Personal history Born in Los Angeles, he graduated fro ...

, produced the Memorex 650 in 1972, the first read-write

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

drive. The Memorex 650 had a capacity of 175kB, with 50 tracks, 8 sectors per track, and 448 bytes per sector. While Memorex successfully competed in the IBM plug-compatible disk storage and communications products market, a series of extremely aggressive pricing and product actions by IBM attacked Memorex's equipment businesses and resulted in lengthy antitrust litigation against IBM. A consumer products division established in 1970 made Memorex a household name with the "Is it live or is it Memorex?" advertising campaign from the

Leo Burnett Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc. He was responsible for creating some of advertising's most well-known characters and campaigns of the 20th cent ...

agency which featured jazz singer

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

and a shattering wineglass (now in the collection of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

). During the 1970s, Memorex produced

cassette tape The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

s which were marketed vigorously through heavy television advertising. Spitters resigned as Memorex's President, Chief Executive Officer, and as a Director of the Company effective April 26, 1974, the date of the Annual Meeting.

Honors

Spitters received an honorary degree from

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

and a Distinguished Alumni Award from

Western Michigan University Western Michigan University (Western Michigan, Western or WMU) is a public research university in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was initially established as Western State Normal School in 1903 by Governor Aaron T. Bliss for the training of teachers ...

. He served on the

Board of Trustees, and on the Board of Directors of ALZA Corp., The Children's Health Council, and The Embarcadero Publishing Company, publisher of the ''

Palo Alto Weekly The ''Palo Alto Weekly'' is a weekly community newspaper in Palo Alto in the U.S. state of California. Owned by Embarcadero Media, it serves Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, Stanford, East Palo Alto and Los Altos Hills. It was e ...

''. Degrees: * M.B.A.,

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

* J.D.,

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a Public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of C ...

* B.A.,

Spitters has been a financial contributor to

American Conservatory Theater The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a nonprofit theater company in San Francisco, California, United States, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. It also has an attached acting school. History The Ameri ...

.American Conservatory Theater, program notes, "The Rivals" by

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Irish satirist, a politician, a playwright, poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as ''The Rivals'', ''The Sc ...

(1751–1816)

/ref>

References

* ''Corporate Histories Collection'', Computer History Museum, 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043 {{DEFAULTSORT:Spitters, Laurence Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Harvard Business School alumni University of Michigan Law School alumni Western Michigan University alumni American businesspeople Silicon Valley people People from the San Francisco Bay Area fr:Memorex it:Memorex