Alex Cable
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alex Cable | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Education | County College of Morris Rutgers University Stevens Institute of Technology |
| Occupations | Optical engineer, entrepreneur |
Alex Cable is an American optical engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is the founder of optical equipment manufacturer Thorlabs.[1]
Cable was born in Chester Borough, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Freehold Township.[2][3] As a child, he enjoyed hiking and camping in Sussex County.[3] Cable dropped out of high school.[2]
Cable's first job was as a dishwasher in a restaurant.[4] He later became chef and then restaurant manager with an eye toward fulfilling his entrepreneurial desires by opening his own restaurant.[5][4] However, he soon realized that the outlook for a restaurant business did not meet his expectations and left the industry.[5] He also worked briefly as a machinist, farm manager, and printer.[4][6]
Cable returned to school, attending the County College of Morris.[2] He subsequently earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Rutgers University, and a graduate degree in material science from the Stevens Institute of Technology.[4]
Career
Out of Rutgers, Cable was recruited by Steven Chu to work in his lab at Bell Labs in the spring of 1984.[7] According to Cable, Chu especially liked Cable's diverse work history.[6] Cable was official employed as a "technician", but Chu described him as "unofficially...a super-graduate student". At Bell Labs, Cable became involved in a series of experiments on a low-temperature atom manipulation technique known as "optical molasses". In late 1987, Chu left Bell labs to take a position at Stanford University.[7] Chu attempted to persuade Cable to join him at Stanford, but Cable declined the offer. Cable instead chose to pursue an entrepreneurial career, having only planned a brief stay at Bell Labs.[5][6]
Together with a college friend, he built two scanning tunneling microscopes for DuPont in his bedroom.[5][6] The first microscope sold for about $50,000, leaving $20,000 of profit after expenses.[6] Cable hoped to make a business out of it, entering the emerging market for the newly invented microscope.[5] Cable's second microscope was less profitable. The business did not appear to be viable due to limited customers and limited working capital, so Cable abandoned the idea.[6] Instead, he took "a more traditional approach", buying a milling machine which he used to design and build optomechanical parts.[5] Selling the parts proved fruitful and also more enjoyable for Cable.[5][6] In November 1989, he left Bell Labs to pursue the business full-time, naming it Thorlabs[5] which he founded in the basement of his Newton, New Jersey home. The company was named after a Labrador retriever named Thor.[8] He returned to Sussex County, and has made an effort to keep the business headquartered there due to his love for the area.[3]
By 2004, Thorlabs had estimated annual sales of $50 million and was expanding into Europe.[5] By 2010, sales had reached $125 million annually.[2] As of 2013, the company produced approximately 20,000 unique products and employed 1,000 people.[3] According to data published by Gale Business Insights, the company had estimated sales of $199.8 million in 2013, the most recent full-year available[9] and had 1,500 employees as of 2016.[8]
In 2021, Cable stepped down as president of Thorlabs, announcing his daughter, Jennifer Cable, as the new president.[10] He remains the CEO.[11]
Cable is a founder and director of several photonics companies including KDD FiberLabs of Tokyo, Menlo Systems GmbH, and Stratophase Ltd.[4] He is also a director of the Boston Micromachines Corporation. In 2010, Cable founded Idesta Quantum Electronics.[12] He sits on the advisory board of the Center for Automation Technologies and Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.[4]