Incorporated in 1955 in NY - Founded by the late Sherman Fairchild, who was Chairman of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, manufacturers of semiconductor devices in a wide variety of applications, and a director of International Business Machines, a company founded by his father. Mr. Fairchild attended Harvard College, but his formal education was interrupted by illness. He later studied engineering at Columbia University. He left Columbia during World War I to build an aerial camera for the War Department. The foundation's current name was adopted in 1974.