Paul Galvin (businessman)

Paul Vincent Galvin was an American chief executive and one of the two founders of the telecommunications company Motorola. He founded it as the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation on 25 September 1928, and the business at first leaned on repairing defective components for Sears to bring in income. When the 1929 stock market crash dented the radio market, his engineers turned to a radio that could be fitted into a car, and the mass production car radio that resulted became the cornerstone of the firm's early trade. The Motorola name, a blend of motor and Victrola, was introduced in 1930. In the Second World War the company designed the Handie-Talkie portable two-way radio for the Army, and afterwards produced an affordable television set. His son Robert took over the company in 1956, and Galvin died in 1959, having given the motor car one of its first widely fitted electronic accessories.