After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1948, Dr. Granger joined SRI in May 1949. His first assignment was to recruit staff, then organize and manage a new engineering labóthe Antenna Lab. He collected a group of excellent researchers, many from Harvard, some from Berkeley, Stanford, and USC. Some of his top recruits were Dr. Jack Bolljahn, Dr. Seymour Cohn, Dr. George Matthei, Dr. Tetsu Morita, and Dr. Edward M. T. Jones.
Granger established strong relationships with the defense research funding sources, including the Air Force Cambridge Research Center, Rome Air Development Center, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. As the Antenna Lab grew in size and reputation, Granger continued his promotional activities, developing contacts with commercial organizations such as Douglas Aircraft, North American, and Lockheed.
Granger's laboratory was very successful in developing new ECM antennas, new log-periodic antennas, and a high-frequency (HF) sounder, which could be used to explore the ionosphere for telecommunications transmission. The large demand for these devices led Dr. Granger to spin off from SRI and establish Granger Associates in Palo Alto in the early 1960s.
In the late 1950s, Dr. Robert Tanner invented a simple device for discharging the static electricity that builds up on flying aircraft. Granger and his staff, including Tanner and others, developed a procedure to design the optimum array of static dischargers for any particular aircraft configuration, thereby minimizing the effects of radio interference. Tannerís patents were licensed to Granger Associates for manufacture and marketing. Eventually all high-speed aircraft, including the "new" Boeing 707 used these devices.
At SRI, John deserves much credit for attracting outstanding staff and providing technical leadership during the period of rapid expansion of SRI's engineering operations. John was a very outgoing, friendly, and technically capable leader. He was especially encouraging to young engineers who joined the growing group. The laboratory that John Granger built became the core of the Electronics and Radio Sciences Division, which eventually peaked at about 500 members.