Type Subsidiary Website Grass Valley | Industry Broadcasting Parent organization Belden | |
Key people Marco Lopez, President; Christian Bernard, SVP, Operatons; Sydney Lovely, SVP, Product Development Unit; Tim Ordaz, SVP, Services & Support; Neerav Shah, SVP, Strategic Marketing; Stephen Stubelt, SVP, Sales and Marketing Communications; Michael Cronk, VP, Core Technology. Headquarters Hillsboro, Oregon, United States Founded 7 April 1959, Grass Valley, California, United States | ||
Grass Valley (also known primarily as Grass Valley Canada, Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, and Grass Valley K.K.) is a Canadian manufacturer of television production and broadcasting equipment, including playout, video cameras, editing and media storage, and character generators. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, it was formed by the March 2014 merger of the Grass Valley Group with Miranda Technologies—which were both acquired by Belden in 2014 and 2012 respectively.
History
Grass Valley Group was founded as a tiny research and development company in 1959 by Dr. Donald Hare in the small town of Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada range. Hare chose Grass Valley after learning about it from his friend, Charles Litton, Sr.. In 1964, Grass Valley demonstrated its first video product, a Video Distribution Amplifier in a hotel room at the National Association of Broadcasters convention. By 1968, the Grass Valley Group had introduced its first vision mixer, the flagship product that helped build the company's reputation.
The company merged with Tektronix in 1974, and with the creativity and vision of Rick Mathewson was very successful for the next fifteen years. When Tektronix divested its printing, video and networking divisions it sold the video business to a private investor, Terry Gooding of San Diego, California, who reincorporated it under the name Grass Valley Group, Inc. The sale closed on September 24, 1999.
In 2002, the French electronics giant Thomson Multimedia, now known as Technicolor SA, acquired Grass Valley Group. After coming under the ownership of Thomson, Grass Valley Group was forced to merge its product line with the existing professional and broadcast products of its new parent company, with mixed results.
After the financial crisis of 2008, Thomson defaulted on its financial covenants and was forced by its creditors to divest its Grass Valley business, PRN and other manufacturing entities. On January 29, 2009, Thomson announced that they were putting the Grass Valley division up for sale.
In 2010, the Grass Valley business unit, not including the head-end and transmission businesses, was acquired by private equity firm Francisco Partners and resumed operating as an independent company with offices in San Francisco, California on January 1, 2011. The company announced in August 2013 it would move its headquarters to Hillsboro, Oregon, later that year to an existing office.
On March 31, 2014, the company was acquired by Belden Inc. from Francisco Partners and merged with Miranda Technologies, which Belden acquired on July 27, 2012. The merged company operates as Grass Valley.