Raven Industries, Inc. is an American company that makes

precision agriculture Precision agriculture (PA) is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual plant and animal data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated varia ...

products and information management tools for growers. Before a series of acquisitions in 2021, it also had an Engineered Films segment that produced plastic films for various agricultural and industrial applications, as well as an Aerostar Industries segment that designed and manufactured high-altitude balloons, tethered

aerostat An aerostat (, via French) or lighter-than-air aircraft is an aircraft that relies on buoyancy to maintain flight. Aerostats include unpowered balloons (free-flying or tethered) and powered airships. The relative density of an aerostat as a ...

s, and radar systems, and sold military parachutes, uniforms, and protective wear. The company was founded in 1956 and headquartered in

Sioux Falls, South Dakota Sioux Falls ( ) is the List of cities in South Dakota, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the List of United States cities by population, 117th-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha Coun ...

. Its stock was traded on Nasdaq until 2021 when it was acquired by

CNH Industrial CNH Industrial N.V. is an Italian-American multinational corporation with global headquarters in Basildon, United Kingdom, but controlled and mostly owned by the multinational investment company Exor (company), Exor, which in turn is controlled ...

History

Early years

Raven Industries was established in 1956 by James Smith, Paul (Ed) Yost, Duwayne Thon, and Joseph Kaliszewski to build research balloons for the United States Navy. They had worked together under General Mills' aeronautical research division. The company produced polyethylene balloons for high altitudes, from 100,000 to 150,000 feet. It first operated out of the old hospital building at an abandoned World War II airbase. When the Manchester Biscuit Company closed down in 1961, Raven moved into the old Manchester building. Raven, along with Piccard Balloons and Semco, were among the first manufacturers of

hot air balloons A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a Gondola (balloon), gondola or wicker, wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, ...

that kicked off the resurgence of ballooning in the mid-1960s. In fact, Ed Yost began this series of events when he built and flew a -diameter balloon a distance of three miles on 22 October 1960. In 1966, Raven added a new 30,000-square-foot facility in Sioux Falls near the airport. According to its website, the first unmanned airship in history to travel in the stratosphere under powered flight was launched and flown by Raven in 1970. By the 1980s, the company was selling over 200 balloons every year. Ballooning had become so popular that Raven created a subsidiary, Aerostar Industries, to concentrate on the production of balloons. Production of hot air balloons ceased in 2007 however due to the costs for liability insurance and a shrinking market.

21st century

The U.S. military and other government agencies were among its clients, and besides the U.S.

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

, Raven Industries had other big name customers such as

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. From 2012 to 2021, its Aerostar subsidiary partnered with

Loon LLC Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of to to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 M ...

, then a subsidiary of

Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Alphabet is the world's third-largest technology company by revenue, after Amazon and Apple, the largest techno ...

, to develop high-altitude communications balloons. In 2019, the

United States Southern Command The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), located in Doral, Florida, Doral in Greater Miami, Greater Miami, Florida, is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providi ...

commissioned surveillance tests using 25 Raven balloons across six

midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

states. It was unclear whether the tests were connected to any ongoing narcotic or counter-terrorism investigations or how the data collected would be handled afterwards, raising privacy concerns. Funded under project COLD STAR (Covert Long-Dwell Stratospheric Architecture) by

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

, the balloons are radar-transparent and carry a stealthy gondola. They can harvest complex data and navigate using AI. Initially created to locate narcotic traffickers, they were later transitioned into military service. According to Tom Karako, a senior fellow at the

Center for Strategic and International Studies The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. From its founding in 1962 until 1987, it was an affiliate of Georgetown University, initially named the Center for Strategic and Inte ...

, the balloons can serve as communication and datalink nodes, as trucks for

intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ISTAR stands for Military intelligence, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. In its macroscopic sense, #ISTAR, ISTAR is a practice that links several battlefield functions together to assist a combat force in employ ...

(ISR) to track airborne targets, such as hypersonic missiles, and as platforms for various weapons. The Pentagon believes COLD STAR could refine hypersonic and long-range fire targeting and was evaluating how to incorporate them and commercial satellites into the same "kill chain". Scott Wickersham, Raven Aerostar's vice-president, said that the company was also working with Sierra Nevada, an aerospace defense company, and the Pentagon's research arm

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

on the Adaptable Lighter-Than-Air (ALTA) program, which aims to make stratospheric balloon navigation more precise and reliable using doppler laser. The technology was transferred to the U.S. military in 2019. In 2021, Raven was acquired by Case New Holland Industrial (

CNHi CNHI, LLC (formerly Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.) is an American publisher of newspapers and advertising-related publications throughout the United States. The company was formed in 1997 by Ralph Martin,

), the second-largest OEM in the world that designs, manufactures and sells agricultural and construction machinery. What attracted CNHi, who had an annual revenue of $26 billion compared to Raven's $400 million, was the latter's Applied Technology division, which focused on autonomous equipment used in agriculture. Its former Engineered Films division would be acquired by Industrial Opportunity Partners, a private equity firm. Scott Wickersham, who had served as president and general manager of the division, would assume the position of CEO under the new ownership. The stratospheric balloon and radar division, Aerostar, was eventually acquired by TCOM Holdings, which specializes in ISR services. It would move from its downtown headquarters into the former Colorado Technical University building and continue to be led by Jim Nelson. Following the acquisitions, Raven was restructured to focus on precision agriculture and acquired 48 acres to expand its Innovation Campus near Baltic, South Dakota. It offers products and services such as automated tiller, harvester and spreader, tractor autonomy, data centralization, guidance and steering systems, spray applicators, and electronic displays. The Raven Precision Agriculture Center at the

South Dakota State University South Dakota State University (SDSU or SD State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Brookings, South Dakota, United States. Founded in 1881, it is the state's largest university and is the sec ...

opened in fall 2021 to support education in agricultural science, technology, and engineering. The company has added hundreds of jobs in

Sioux Falls Sioux Falls ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 117th-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into northern Lincoln County. The population was 192 ...

and established a cyber defense hub in collaboration with students and graduates from

Dakota State University Dakota State University (DSU) is a public university in Madison, South Dakota, United States. The school was founded in 1881 as a normal school, or teacher training school. Education is still the university's heritage mission, but a signatur ...

Trivia

Between 1984 and 2019, Raven Industries made hundreds of balloons and other inflatables for the annual

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the American-based department store chain Macy's. The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States ...

, depicting characters such as

Hello Kitty , also known by her real name , is a fictional character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as a British anthropomorphized white cat with a red ...

Pikachu Pikachu (; Japanese: , Hepburn: ) is a Pokémon species in Nintendo and Game Freak's ''Pokémon'' media franchise, and the franchise's mascot. First introduced in the video games ''Pokémon Red'' and ''Blue'', it was created by Atsuko N ...

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appearance, first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in ...

, and

Spongebob Squarepants ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' is an American animated television series, animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It first aired as a sneak peek after the 1999 Kids' C ...

References

External links