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James Hurd '70, recipient of Lewis & Clark College's 1999 Distinguished Alumnus Award, has climbed a few mountains in his 51 years. He's gazed down from the snowcapped peaks of Kilimanjaro, breathed the rarified air of Mount Rainier and exalted in the view from Mount Hood. But he's always taken talented people along with him to share the view at the top. He applies that same philosophy to building his business: travel with others who share your vision. When, in 1983, Hurd cofounded Planar Systems Inc.&emdash;a leading global developer and manufacturer of high-performance displays for the medical, transportation and industrial markets&emdash;the company of 10 employees struggled in the red. Today, more than 800 people are on the payroll; the company has an office in Europe; and the market capitalization of the Beaverton high-tech company, which provides displays for applications from medical equipment to MackTrucks to military avionics, is about $100 million. Since May 1999, Hurd has taken medical leave from his position as chief executive officer at Planar to battle leukemia, a precarious uphill journey, which led to a bone-marrow transplant in November. Although fresh from a chemotherapy session, Hurd emanates energy and optimism during a telephone interview from Seattle, where he's undergoing treatment. As Planar Board Chair Bill Walker puts it, "He's a bulldog, the most tenacious, never-give-up person you could hope to find." Working alongside talented people from different backgrounds reaps rewards, and diversity creates a richer workplace, Hurd believes. Diversity is the quality that first impressed him at Lewis & Clark College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in physics. "I was raised in eastern Washington, and there's not a whole lot of variety out there," he recalls. "When I came to Lewis & Clark, I was impressed with the variety of people, professors, teachers and students. A lot of the skills I've used in recent years are rooted in that time when I was just entering adulthood and was confronted with a wonderful amount of diversity in people and thinking. I've always treasured the openness I encountered there, and I've always tried to apply it." Cofounded by Hurd, Chris King and John Laney, Planar was mostly composed of former Tektronix employees in its infancy. During the mid-'80s, times were tough but exciting, according to Douglas Barnes, managing operations vice president, who ran regularly with Hurd in Oregon's annual Hood to Coast relay run. "We were the darlings of the high-tech community out here," he recalls. "Everyone was interested in what we were doing in those early days. In spite of our financial difficulties, people beat on our doors, trying to get jobs here because it was a good place to work." Hurd's energy and vision fed that interest. He was part of the team that developed electroluminescence, a lighting source for flat-panel displays that gave the cathode-ray tube strong competition. Planar's displays soon became noted for their clarity, brightness, thin design and light weight. Hurd sparked Planar's growth through important acquisitions such as Finlux, a competitor in Helsinki, Finland, that led Planar into the global market. And he was instrumental in landing important contracts to supply military aircraft. "Jim identified the movement in the medical field to use portable patient monitors and other relatively mobile medical monitoring equipment. And he identified the need to display information at a glance," according to Jack Raiton, chief financial officer. "That was our largest market in the '80s." In the '90s, Hurd identified vehicular transportation as an important market, and Planar recently signed a contract with Mack Trucks to supply flat-panel displays for trucks. "We've had a lot of growth at Planar, and much of it is due to Jim's visions and initiatives," said Raiton. "He's able to earn people's respect, to get them to line up behind him on a common goal," observes Laney, director of display process technology at Planar. "But he also has the technical expertise to evaluate solutions and to provide his own." Hurd, who served for three years on the board of trustees of the Oregon Graduate Institute, is praised by his colleagues for having a knack for peering down the road to predict future trends. "He has a blend of people skills, technical expertise and business sense that I personally haven't seen anywhere else," adds Laney. Hurd grew up in Kennewick, Wash., as the youngest of five children. His father was managing director of the Washington Public Power Supply System. After graduating from Lewis & Clark, he married Alice Jones '71, a natural sciences major from the Chicago area. "He was enrolled, as I was, in a hiking and camping class. We met on a weekend outing," she said. Her first impression of Hurd was that he was "a mystery guy" who "keeps to himself." Hurd worked at Tektronix part time during his last two years in college, drove a sports car and was one of the few physics majors on campus at the time, she recalls. The couple has two sons, Owen and Peter, born in 1978 and 1982, respectively. "Jim's always been a very unusual person," Alice adds. "He marches to his own drummer and is very goal oriented, very disciplined. He has an expression: 'If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.' We joke about that a lot, because sometimes I take any road and wander around until something looks interesting. He's not that way." -by Holly Johnson Editor's Note: James Hurd died Wednesday, June 14, 2000, of leukemia at the age of 52. A memorial service to honor him was held in Agnes Flanagan Chapel at Lewis & Clark Collge on June 23, 2000. |
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