Early years Raven Industries was established in 1956 by James Smith,
Paul (Ed) Yost, Duwayne Thon, and Joseph Kaliszewski to build research balloons for the United States Navy. They had worked together under
General Mills' aeronautical research division. The company produced polyethylene balloons for high altitudes, from 100,000 to 150,000 feet. It first operated out of the old hospital building at an abandoned World War II airbase. When the Manchester Biscuit Company closed down in 1961, Raven moved into the old Manchester building. Raven, along with
Piccard Balloons and Semco, were among the first manufacturers of
hot air balloons that kicked off the resurgence of ballooning in the mid-1960s. In fact, Ed Yost began this series of events when he built and flew a -diameter balloon a distance of three miles on 22 October 1960. In 1966, Raven added a new 30,000-square-foot facility in Sioux Falls near the airport. According to its website, the first unmanned airship in history to travel in the stratosphere under powered flight was launched and flown by Raven in 1970. From 2012 to 2021, its Aerostar subsidiary partnered with
Loon LLC, then a subsidiary of
Alphabet Inc., to develop high-altitude communications balloons. In 2019, the
United States Southern Command commissioned surveillance tests using 25 Raven balloons across six
midwest states. It was unclear whether the tests were connected to any ongoing narcotic or counter-terrorism investigations or how the data collected would be handled afterwards, raising privacy concerns. They can harvest complex data and navigate using AI. Initially created to locate narcotic traffickers, they were later transitioned into military service. According to Tom Karako, a senior fellow at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, the balloons can serve as communication and datalink nodes, as trucks for
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) to track airborne targets, such as hypersonic missiles, and as platforms for various weapons. The Pentagon believes COLD STAR could refine hypersonic and long-range fire targeting and was evaluating how to incorporate them and commercial satellites into the same "kill chain". What attracted CNHi, who had an annual revenue of $26 billion compared to Raven's $400 million, was the latter's Applied Technology division, which focused on autonomous equipment used in agriculture. Its former Engineered Films division would be acquired by Industrial Opportunity Partners, a private equity firm. Scott Wickersham, who had served as president and general manager of the division, would assume the position of CEO under the new ownership. The stratospheric balloon and radar division, Aerostar, was eventually acquired by TCOM Holdings, which specializes in ISR services. It would move from its downtown headquarters into the former Colorado Technical University building and continue to be led by Jim Nelson. The Raven Precision Agriculture Center at the
South Dakota State University opened in fall 2021 to support education in agricultural science, technology, and engineering. == Trivia ==