Robert H. Marriott

Robert H. Marriott (1879 to 1951) was an American radio pioneer and the first president of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Born in Richwood, Ohio, he began radio experiments in 1897 at Ohio State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1901. He is credited as the first person in America to put the telephone and detector method of radio reception into use, a system that foreshadowed the vacuum tube, and he completed the first Pacific Coast commercial broadcasting link between Avalon on Catalina Island and the California mainland. In 1909 he founded the Wireless Institute, and in 1912 it merged with the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers to form the Institute of Radio Engineers, which he led as its first president. He worked as a radio aide to the Navy from 1915 to 1925, consulted for the Federal Radio Commission, held patents and wrote many papers on radio.