David Buchanan

David R. Buchanan (1958 B.S.E.E., 1963 M.S.) of Flagstaff, Arizona, has an entrepreneurial spirit and a common-sense management style, both of which have helped him achieve astounding financial and technological success. After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Iowa College of Engineering, he held a variety of technical and managerial posts including at General Dynamics Corporation in San Diego, where he was an engineer on the Atlas Missile Project and in the autopilot design group. Other projects included Bendix Project Mercury, Bermuda and Sperry Flight Systems, and General Electric’s computer department in Phoenix. Buchanan then entered the entrepreneurial phase of his career, founding and investing in young high-technology companies and building them into successful enterprises. When General Electric moved its Computer Peripherals Division to Oklahoma City, Buchanan decided to remain in Phoenix. He hired GE’s four best engineers and started Peripherals, Inc., which designed and produced disc-drive testing equipment. Within three years, the company expanded and was sold to Wabash Magnetics, Inc., for $5.4 million. In 1971, he founded Talos Systems, Inc. Within 10 years, the company was a leader in its field and became part of Sauder’s Associated on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, the business is owned by Lockheed Martin and is the largest supplier of digitizers in the world. David Buchanan has played a major role in the development of several highly successful businesses that have helped the U.S. remain a major player in the international computer and electronic technology industry, including Three-Five Systems, Inc., a New York Stock Exchange Company, from which he recently retired as chairman. Buchanan came out of retirement in 1985 to rescue Three-Five Systems, building the struggling manufacturer of advanced computer chips into a leading supplier of customized controls and electronic displays (particularly liquid crystal display) for original equipment manufacturers. Three-Five Systems was nominated as the top stock performer on Wall Street in 1993. The company has grown along with the expanding industries it serves—cellular communications, medical electronics, and office automation—and continues to serve the dynamic custom display module market with manufacturing facilities in North America, the Philippines, and China. In 1980, Buchanan, a Belmond, Iowa, native, established the David R. Buchanan Scholarship Fund to support UI students in electrical engineering. In 1996, he received the UI Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award for Achievement. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Phoenix Executives Club, and the White Mountain Country Club.