Picker X-Ray Corporation
founded 1915
Picker X-Ray Corporation was first founded as James Picker Co. in 1915. James Picker had been a supplier of Kodak x-ray plates and accessories to hospitals in New York. Incorporated in 1921 as the Picker X-ray Corp., and expanded in 1929 to manufacturing with plants in New York and Cleveland, with the acquisition of the Waite & Bartlett Corp, one of the venerable American x-ray equipment makers, and taking over the plant of the Engeln Electric Company of Cleveland, recently bankrupt.
Picker become a leading innovator in the field of x-ray apparatus, especially with the development of 'shockproof' units. During World War II, Picker produced the only completely mobile field x-ray units for the Allied Forces. In the second half of the century, the company was an innovator in fields such as magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography.
Picker continued to grow in the Postwar period, and the Picker family sold the business in 1958 to CIT Financial Corp., which presided over another decade of expansion, including nuclear medicine. After a decline in business in the 1970s, Picker was sold to RCA in 1980, which in turn sold it to GEC (England) in 1981. When GEC was renamed to Marconi, Picker took the name of Marconi Medical Systems. The company was acquired in 1999 by Phillips.