After earning a degree in
electrical engineering at the
University of Minnesota,
Ronald Stordahl returned to his hometown of
Thief River Falls, Minnesota, where he took up
ham radio in the early 1970s. Stordahl created a kit of electronic parts to improve the transmission of
Morse code over his radio. It was a
keyer designed to generate time-uniform Morse code. This branched off into the distribution of other electronic components, allowing customers to purchase parts in any quantity, no matter how small. The company quickly grew, and by 1984, it was located in a one million square foot facility next door to
Arctic Cat, a
snowmobile manufacturer. In 1996, DigiKey launched its website, gradually shifting focus towards
e-commerce. The first international domain was launched in 1996 in Canada. This would later expand to over 40 local domains. Mark Larson, who joined DigiKey in 1976 as its general manager, became president in 1985. He has led the company from its initial focus on the hobbyist market to the expanded market it serves today. DigiKey continued to grow following the recession in 2008. By 2017, DigiKey was located in a single, centralized location in Thief River Falls, Minnesota that measured . In 2017 the company began work on a one million square foot expansion to their Thief River Falls facility at an expected cost of $200 million to $300 million. The expansion was helped by government incentives and tax exemptions and was expected to add another 1,000 jobs at Digi-Key. By 2018, the company had annual revenue of $2.3 billion and more than 3,500 employees. On September 29, 2021, DigiKey announced a global distribution partnership with QuickLogic Corporation, a fabless semiconductor company. In November 2022, DigiKey was granted their first patent for a 'tray for transporting and storing electronic components' (U.S. Patent No. USD968957S1). During the summer of 2023, DigiKey celebrated their 50th anniversary, an event which was delayed the previous year due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In April of 2025, Teri Ivaniszyn of Digi-Key says "I wake up in cold sweats about tariffs" when interviewed by NPR regarding the current tariff situation. ==See also==