Russell Harrison Varian (April 24, 1898 – July 28, 1959) and Sigurd Fergus Varian (May 4, 1901 – October 18, 1961) were American brothers who founded one of the earliest high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. Born to theosophist parents who helped lead the utopian community of Halcyon, California, they grew up in a home with multiple creative influences. The brothers showed an early interest in electricity, and after independently establishing careers in electronics and aviation they came together to invent the klystron, which became a critical component of radar, telecommunications and other microwave technologies. In 1948 they founded Varian Associates to market the klystron and other inventions; the company became the first to move into Stanford Industrial Park, the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Both brothers were noted for their progressive political views; Russell was a lifelong supporter of the Sierra Club, Sigurd helped found the housing cooperative of Ladera, California, and Varian Associates instituted innovative employee policies that were ahead of their time. In 1950, the Varians were awarded the John Price Wetherill Medal for the development of the klystron, and both were posthumously inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Council Hall of Fame in 1993.
Childhood The Varian brothers' parents, John and Agnes Varian, were born and raised in Ireland, and were members of the Theosophical Society in Dublin. They emigrated to the United States in 1894, and settled in Syracuse, New York, where they became involved with a theosophical group headed by William Dower. After Dower moved to Halcyon, California, they joined him in 1914, shortly after Halcyon's founding. It was a utopian community that included a sanatorium for the treatment of liquor, morphine, and opium addiction, with socialist leanings and some communal property. John Varian became a leader of the Temple of the People at Halcyon, worked as a chiropractor and masseur, wrote theosophist poetry and socialist tracts, and pursued an interest in Irish myth and history. Agnes was the first Halcyon storekeeper and postmistress. John and Agnes had three sons, Russell, Sigurd and Eric. The family was not wealthy, but noted in the community for being loving, humorous and adventurous. All three boys exhibited an early fascination with electricity, which included pranks such as attaching electrical outlets to bed springs and door knobs to give visitors minor electric shocks. Russell was named in honor of the poet "Æ", George Russell, whom John had befriended in Ireland. Russell was dyslexic, and in his childhood he was considered by many to be "slow", although later events would demonstrate the true extent of his intellect; Sigurd was the more outgoing of the older two siblings. Composer Henry Cowell befriended Russell in 1911, when both were in their teens. A piano sonata that Cowell composed for Russell brought Cowell to the attention of John Varian, who, in 1917, asked Cowell to write the prelude for a stage production of John's Irish mythical poetry cycle, The Building of Banba. This piece, titled The Tides of Manaunaun, became Cowell's most famous and widely performed work. Cowell was also a music tutor of Ansel Adams, and the Varian family in turn became friends with Adams, who became friends with Russell and Sigurd through their mutual activity in the Sierra Club. Adams knew the family for more than 30 years, and was a hiking companion of Russell's; the pair made many trips into the Sierras. Adams later used a line from one of John Varian's poems, "...What Majestic Word", as the title of his 1963 Portfolio Four, which he dedicated to Russell's memory. The portfolio, of which only 200 copies were printed, was narrated with the words of John and Russell Varian, and sold as a fundraiser for the Sierra Club.
Careers Russell earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from Stanford University, compensating for his learning disabilities with what was described as hard work and "sheer force of will". Because of his reading and math difficulties, he took six years to graduate, switching from social sciences to physics. His application to the PhD program at Stanford was rejected. He completed his master's degree in 1927, and went to work at Humble Oil, staying there for five months and receiving a patent for a vibrating magnetometer. Later he went to work in the San Francisco area and was introduced to television technology through a job with Philo Farnsworth. Sigurd attended California Polytechnic State University, but, mostly owing to boredom, dropped out and never completed a college degree. Through much of his career, Sigurd was periodically ill because of tuberculosis. After a brief stint working for Southern California Edison Company stringing power lines, he took flying lessons and became a pilot, airplane mechanic, and self-taught engineer. He worked as a barnstormer and later as a pilot for Pan American Airways, at a time when the company developed new routes into Latin America. Sigurd was one of the pilots Pan Am selected for their first flights to Mexico and Central America, and while working as an airline captain, he lived in Mexico from 1929 to 1934. From this experience, he discovered many problems with existing maps, finding, for example, that some Mexican charts showed swamps where there were actually mountains. He also realized how difficult it was to land safely or to detect other planes at night or when it was overcast. As a result, he was very familiar with the inadequacies of existing navigational equipment and became interested in ways to make flying safer. In the early 1930s, in addition to a strong interest in navigation, Sigurd became concerned about the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and the political situation in Spain. His experience as a pilot in Central and South America made him particularly aware of the vulnerability of the Panama Canal to enemy attack, as he believed it was relatively simple to fly over a military target at night or in heavy overcast sky in the absence of a defense warning system. Edward Ginzton, who later helped the brothers establish Varian Associates, stated: "[Sigurd] felt that Hitler could easily establish bases in Central America, from which his planes could fly into the United States at night, or at low elevations, and drop bombs, without ever being detected."
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
