CPI International, Inc., headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., is the parent company of Communications & Power Industries, Inc., a leading provider of microwave and radio frequency products for critical defense, communications, medical, scientific and other applications.
Communications & Power Industries, Inc. develops, manufactures and distributes products used to generate, amplify and transmit high-power/high-frequency microwave and radio frequency signals and/or provide power and control for various applications. End-use applications of these systems include the transmission of radar signals for navigation and location; transmission of deception signals for electronic countermeasures; transmission and amplification of voice, data and video signals for broadcasting, internet and other types of communications; providing power and control for medical diagnostic imaging; generating microwave energy for radiation therapy in the treatment of cancer and for various industrial and scientific applications.
CPI is a public company (NASDAQ:CPII).
They are located at 811 Hansen Way, Palo Alto, CA 94303
Robert Fickett is the President and Chief Operating Officer.
Aerial view from Google Maps.Shutting the San Carlos Site and the Expansion of the Palo Alto Site
CPI purchased their site in the Stanford Research Park (in Palo Alto) from Varian around ten years ago. They had another manufacturing facility in San Carlos, located in an industrial area far away from any residential neighborhoods. Somewhere around 2005, CPI closed the facility in San Carlos and moved the production line to Palo Alto, after remodelling the Palo Alto facility to expand its capacity. In the process, CPI significantly increased quantities of hazardous materials stored adjacent to a residential area, never taking into consideration the danger posed by those chemicals to families living next door to the site. It was not until the February 2006 release of a toxic plume of nitric acid over the adjacent neighborhood that residents realized just what was going on next door.
Stanford Research Park, formerly known as Stanford Industrial Park, shifted emphasis on research and development many years ago, and CPI is the only company left in the Research Park (and in Palo Alto) with a large and hazardous manufacturing facility.