Mike Villard was one of several SRI staff members hired by Fred Terman to work at the Harvard Radio Research Lab in the early 1940s. At the end of the war, Mike and others received graduate assistantships at Stanford University. After receiving his Ph.D., Mike undertook research at Stanford in communications and propagation. Through mathematical analysis and laboratory research, Mike led the development of a new way of generating high power SSB at the final amplifier. Around 1949, the Army Signal Corps placed a major contract with SRI, in collaboration with Stanford, to pursue this important topic.
Around 1970, Mike brought his over-the-horizon (OTH) radar staff and skill base to SRI. He continued and extended basic research, previously conducted at Stanford, and developed important engineering applications, often anticipating national defense needs.
At SRI, Mike developed advanced techniques for canceling target return signals from radar and sonar that resulted in reducing aircraft and submarine detection. This work led to important active and semiactive stealth technologies. Mike and his SRI associates directed the design and construction of important state-of-the-art measurement equipment that extended crucial experiments to higher frequencies.
Mike devised an inconspicuous antenna technique for nulling out communications jammer signals. This technology permitted people in oppressed countries to receive HF and MF Voice of America radio programs in spite of efforts by governments unfriendly to the United States to block that information. Later, Chinese students in this country, outraged by the Tienniman Square student killings, translated into Cantonese Mike's write-up for the antenna design. Mike received many requests for the paper from Mainland Chinese relatives.
Mike was practical, inventive, and intuitive—good at designing the decisive, definitive experiment. His vision, anticipating national defense needs, his imaginative solutions to critical problems, and his SRI leadership brought national recognition to him, his associates, and the Institute.