Howard Ladd

Ladd was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Industry Hall of Fame in October 2006.

Ladd founded Concord Media Systems in 1991. That company was the Assignee for US Utility Patent 5355161, an "Identification system for broadcast program segments". The patent has been cited in numerous subsequent patent applications.

Ladd was Chairman of the Board of Concord Technology Development LLC, an information systems company, from 1991 to 1995. In 2004, Ladd launched a subsidiary named "Contek Wholesale". As a division of Concord Technology Development, the business was said to be "a creator of cutting-edge consumer products for home and office". One of the subsidiary's first products was "the world'’s first bathroom scale with built-in electronic weight control system".

Projectavision, founded by Eugene Dolgoff in Westbury, New York was an early American producer of high image quality LCD projectors. Ladd joined the executive committee of the company in 1989 to “handle consumer marketing for the firm”.

Ladd claimed he had retired in 1988 at age 67, but he continued to stay active in many business opportunities.

In 1986, Sanyo's U.S. affiliate merged with Fisher to become Sanyo Fisher (U.S.A.) Corporation (later renamed Sanyo Fisher Company). The mergers made the entire organization more efficient, but also resulted in the departure of certain key executives, including Ladd, who had first introduced the Sanyo name to the United States in the early 1970s.

In May 1986, Ladd founded Ladd Electronics, incorporating the company in Los Angeles, California. Ladd was granted US utility patent US4912457A for a "Detector and message annunciator device", described as "an apparatus for detecting the presence of people and generating an audio message and/or a video display directed to the person or persons whose presence has been detected".

By 1985, Ladd had sold the Concord Electronics mobile audio company to the Penril Corporation in Rockville, Maryland.

Concord mobile audio equipment quickly became one of the leading sellers of high-end, in-dash automobile cassette deck receivers, amplifiers and accessories. The 1982 Concord HPL-130 pioneered the use of Sendust tape playback heads, dbx noise reduction circuitry as well as Dolby noise reduction circuitry, four-gang quartz digital tuning and an audio reproduction range of 30-20,000 Hz, at less than 0.08% distortion, rivaling many in-home audio receivers at a retail price of $ 600 (equivalent to $1,685 in 2021). The Concord mobile product lineup included equalizers, amplifiers and external noise-reduction units designed to seamlessly enhance an in-dash unit's performance.

Ladd and his associates founded the National Mercantile Bancorp in Century City, California in 1982. Ladd served as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of the company and the bank. Ladd had been a director of the company since 1983 and of the bank since 1982. Ladd owned 1.9% of the bank at the time of acquisition by First California Bank.

In 1978, Ladd said his audio merchandising philosophy for Fisher audio equipment was "the right product at the right price at the right time. I know that sounds basic, but that's what we've been able to do". After a "broadening of product and technology philosophies", Ladd predicted "the remarkable turnaround" will see the "privately held subsidiary doing 100 million (equivalent to $415,459,184 in 2021) in annual sales". Ladd was mistaken. The turnaround actually resulted in a return almost ten times greater than his prediction.

Finally, Emerson agreed to sell its share in Fisher to Sanyo. Sanyo purchased Fisher Electronics from Emerson in May 1977. Under Ladd’s leadership, the Fisher Corporation under Sanyo grew to be a multi-million dollar leader in the consumer electronics industry. The new, profitable Fisher Corporation moved its headquarters from New York to Ladd's Los Angeles. Ladd was named President and CEO of the combined Sanyo / Fisher Corporation in 1977, serving until 1987.

In 1975, Ladd incorporated the Westland International Corporation in Tarzana, California, doing business as Concord Electronics. The company sold stereo radio receivers and cassette tape players for automobiles under the brand names "Concord" and "Westport". Its manufacturing plants were in Tarzana, California, and Yamatoshi, Japan. The Concord Electronics brand name was trademarked in 1980.

Sanyo also realized tremendous growth during Ladd's tenure in the 1970s; annual sales grew from $71.4 million (equivalent to $462,537,947 in 2021) in 1972 to $855 million (equivalent to $3,552,176,020 in 2021) in 1978. During that time, Sanyo had production facilities in a number of countries around the world, including Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Ghana, Brazil, Canada and Los Angeles, California.

In 1969 Ladd became the Executive Vice President and COO of the Sanyo Corporation. Ladd introduced the Sanyo brand to the United States in 1970.

In 1969, Fisher Electronics was acquired by Emerson Electric, who moved Fisher's manufacturing operations to Hong Kong due to high labor costs, but the company continued to suffer quality problems. Fisher's market share continued to drop precipitously. In the early 1970s, Sanyo stepped in, revamping production to increase Fisher product quality. The cooperation between Emerson and Sanyo continued until May 1975, when Sanyo, which still had no American manufacturing affiliate, engineered the transfer of several Fisher product lines to Japan and rehabilitated a Fisher speaker plant at Milroy, Pennsylvania. While 50-50 partners, Sanyo and Emerson were unable to resolve numerous differences of opinion in regard to Fisher.

In 1968, Ladd sold Concord Electronics to the New York based Ehrenreich Photo-Optical Industries, the exclusive US importer of Nikon photographic equipment. The transaction cost Ehrenreich Photo-Optical Industries 44,000 shares of their common shares of stock. Additional payments were to be made "on the basis of future earnings". Ladd remained with Concord as president for a year. Ehrenreich Photo-Optical Industries sold the Concord Electronics brand to Benjamin Electronic Sound Corp., a subsidiary of the New York based Instrument Systems Corporation in 1970.

By 1966, Concord offered 18 different models of reel-to-reel recorders. For the next decade, Concord Electronics continued to innovate consumer recording products including the first portable, battery operated tape recorder with a built-in radio.

Ladd was a pioneer in producing personal video tape recording equipment. In 1966, Concord introduced the VTR-600 video system at the Los Angeles High Fidelity Music Show. The three-piece system included a push-button, helical scan video recording unit, a nine-inch monitor and a Concord video camera. Ladd said the system was designed to meet the needs of professional communicators and wasn't aimed at the home market. The system retailed for $1500 (equivalent to $12,528 in 2021).

In 1965, Concord offered the Concord F-20 "Sound Camera" tape recorder. The unit used 2.5-inch tape reels with a rim-drive tape transport. It could record 20 to 30 minutes of audio. The F-20 was featured several times during the opening sequence of the Mission Impossible television series between 1966 and 1973.

Ladd founded Concord Electronics, developing and marketing the first reel-to-reel and stereo audio compact cassette tape recorders that were sold in the U.S.. Most notably, in the 1960s, his Concord 5-inch reel-to-reel recorder was an entirely novel and innovative piece of electronic audio equipment. Ladd’s tape recorder became one of the most successful products in the electronics industry at that time.

Ladd attended Overbrook High School and graduated from Germantown High School in 1938, both in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ladd graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942 with a degree in electrical engineering and earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Howard Philip Ladd (1921-2015) was an electrical engineer, inventor, marketer, entrepreneur and bank founder. Ladd was a pioneering giant in American and international consumer audio and video electronics.

Ladd was the first of two sons born to Augusta Gertrude (née Feiner) and David Ladd in Providence, Rhode Island on April 5, 1921. Raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ladd died on July 7, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.