CHECKING
30 YEARS OF “ GOING BIG ”
Viasat ’ s journey from the spare room to the board room .
BY GRETCHEN PELLETIER
1986 : Three men at a table talking excitedly . No suits and ties , just a meeting of the minds with an energy in the air . Jots on a pad — numbers , sketches , strategy . Clearly they ’ re onto something … pushing something . One of them says , “ We have to do it . We have to go big .” And they all lean in .
This month , ViaSat , Inc . celebrates 30 years of going big — pushing forth remarkable ideas and testing the limits of what technology can do . ViaSat ’ s reach has grown from those three men at a table to more than 3,700 employees across the world ( and a host of innovations in orbit around it ) all ensuring that businesses , governments and individuals have secure access to communication virtually anywhere on the ground or in the skies . If you ’ ve streamed a movie while flying on a plane , you ’ ve likely experienced ViaSat and just one of the many things they do .
STARTING OFF ViaSat was founded by Mark Dankberg and
3000 satellite communications test two UC San Diego alumni , Steve Hart , M . A . system , their first major milestone .
’ 80 , and Mark Miller , Warren ’ 81 . Though Hart and Miller shared a university in
That was just the beginning . “ In 2011 , common , they met each other and Dankberg we changed the satellite industry when we as employees of Linkabit , the 1970s tech launched ViaSat‐1 ,” says Miller . “ We built company that would become the seedbed of the world ’ s highest‐capacity satellite with the San Diego telecommunications industry . more bandwidth than all other satellites
When Linkabit ’ s founders left for new in the country combined , and moved the ventures , Dankberg approached Miller and residential broadband market forward .”
Hart to form their own enterprise . Between them , they had the diverse skills , industry
GIVING BACK knowledge , networks and interests to get From their earliest conversations , says going . “ We overlapped in some areas ,” says Hart , “ The big thing for us was to build
Hart , “ but we each brought a core expertise .” a sustainable company . And here we are , 30 years and growing , because of
With a bit of startup capital in hand , our people .” With an emphasis on talent the three opened the doors of an early and a commitment to learning , ViaSat satellite communications company . actively recruits UC San Diego graduates ;
Actually , there was just one door back currently , 164 ViaSat employees are UC then — a spare room in Dankberg ’ s home . San Diego alumni . And as a testament
But by 1990 they delivered ViaSat ’ s to the company ’ s esteem for creative first product to the U . S . Navy : the VTS- thinking , ViaSat was a founding partner
in one of the boldest ideas on the UC San Diego campus : the Arthur C . Clarke Center for Human Imagination , a global
hub for researchers in the arts , sciences , humanities , engineering and medicine to get together to explore the basis of imagination .
ViaSat is also one of UC San Diego ’ s most active corporate partners , providing students and faculty with scholarships ,
internships , research collaboration opportunities and industry experiences . “ I learned about ViaSat my junior year
at a career fair ,” says Ben Renfrew , Muir ’ 14 , now a software engineer for the company . “ I interned there over the
summer in 2013 , and I got three job offers at three companies my senior year .” Having chosen ViaSat , Renfrew often returns to campus to tell current students about his future with the company .
As for the future of ViaSat , 2017 will see the launch of its next satellite , ViaSat‐2 , which will nearly double the network capacity and increase ViaSat‐1 ’ s current coverage by sevenfold . Even further out , the company has plans to launch ViaSat‐3 in 2019 , which will bring high‐speed internet to the farthest corners of the planet .
So three decades in and just getting started , what keeps Dankberg , Miller and Hart coming back to that table ? “ Respect ,” says Hart . “ Plus , we like to challenge each other and imagine what the next big thing will be . We ’ re not done yet . We ’ re still having fun .”
50 TRITON | SPRING 2016