Milestones Icon: StorageTek

Storage Technology Corp. sprang up four years after IBM came to Boulder in 1965, establishing a base of high-tech talent that, in turn, attracted outside companies to set up shop and spawned spinoffs.

 IBM co-workers Juan Rodriguez, Jesse Aweida, Thomas Kavanagh and Zoltan Herger, spotted an unexploited market opportunity to start Storage Technology Corp.

StorageTek started with a dozen or so employees housed in a single room above the Aristocrat Steak House in Boulder that Rodriguez referred to as “one big bullpen.” It delivered its first product 14 months later. It made $26 million in sales its first year.

In 1970 the co-founders…