Rogers Corporation, 1966

The first high-tech company to call Chandler home arrived in 1966

Chandler in 1966 was far from the sprawling suburbia that we know today. Its 10,000 or so residents lived within a couple mile radius of the intersection of Chandler Boulevard and Arizona Avenue. The sleepy community was surrounded by thousands of acres of cotton and sugar beet fields. The small town eight miles from its nearest neighbor, Mesa, hardly seemed destined for a technology induced growth spurt.

Despite all of this, Rogers Corporation, a technology company seeking to expand into the growing electronics industry, saw an opportunity to build its western headquarters in the small, dusty farm town. Rogers was founded in Connecticut in 1832 by Peter Rogers as a paper mill. For its first hundred years, it focused on making paper products. In the 1930s, its business model changed to the field of polymers, and they made a wide variety of products ranging from motor insulation to footwear. By the 1960s, Rogers was the leading manufacturer of circuit boards and was eager to expand. In 1967, Rogers opened its Circuit Systems Division in a 40,000 square foot facility in Chandler. The opening of Rogers' factory set off a wave of development that has yet to slow down. It put Chandler on the path to become the center of the Silicon Desert, anchored by the high tech firms lining the Price Road Corridor.

Today, Rogers’ Chandler plants include the Advanced Materials Circuits and Durel divisions on two sites, as well as the corporation’s headquarters.