Happy Golden Anniversary of Weather Innovation to Us

In 2019 was a milestone year in Davis Instruments' history.

First, we celebrated our Golden Anniversary. We raised our mugs of tea to two fresh-out-of-business-school guys, who, back in 1969, decided to scrape together enough cash to buy a business. How could youngsters Jim Acquistapace and Bob Selig have guessed that the little marine product company they bought from Mr. Davis himself would someday become a worldwide weather station company with a reputation for producing high quality, affordable, rugged, and accurate weather stations?

At the time, Davis Instruments was making a wonderful, lightweight plastic sextant – a tool for navigating the seas. How, you may ask, did we get from there to here?

The first product that veered from “just marine” to “marine weather” was the Turbometer, released in 1984. It was a hand-held wind meter for sailors. It spurred the dynamic duo to jump all the way into the weather business by acquiring Digitar and starting to manufacture their first weather station. That humble little station (it was actually pretty darned good, even without a humidity sensor!) was to be the granddaddy of our high-tech Vantage Pro2 and Vantage Vue stations.

2019 was our “Golden Anniversary of Weather Innovation.” We started out manufacturing a bit of plastic that miraculously let you know where you were in the world with just the sky for a guide. We ended up our first half-century with the release of WeatherLink Live, another beautifully molded bit of plastic housing an equally miraculous technology that gathers the details of your own micro-climate and delivers it to the phone in your pocket and weatherlink.com.

Bob and Jim celebrated 30 years at our current headquarters in Hayward, California, in 1999.

But 2019 was also the End of an Era, and the start of a new life for Davis Instruments. After 50 years, Jim and Bob retired and Davis Instruments became part of the Advanced Environmental Monitoring https://www.aemonitoring.com, partnering with other members of our new family including OneRain, High Sierra, Vieux & Associates, FTS, Lambrecht Meteo, and Earth Networks.

What will the next 50 years bring? Even if it's not flying cars, we are excited for future and already planning our Centennial Celebration for 2069.