If you’ve opened up a car enthusiast magazine or consumer electronics publication anytime over, say, the last 25 years or so, there’s a good chance you saw the face of Mike Valentine—or at least the product from his eponymous company, Valentine Research.
That’s because Mike Valentine was one of the leading innovators behind radar detector technology, which helped him become the spokesman for his own line of radar detectors.
After graduating from the University of Cincinnati with an Electrical Engineering degree, Mike founded Cincinnati Microwave with some of his colleagues and began work on the soon-to-be iconic “Escort” radar detector. Not too long after that, Mike and his wife Peg Valentine struck out on their own and founded Valentine Research to continue evolving nascent radar detector technologies.
Valentine helped usher-in a wide range of innovations, notably a direction indicator that told you where the radar source was coming from in relation to your vehicle.
The latest iteration of the Valentine radar detector is still on the market today as the Valentine V1 Gen2 and you can see Mike show it off in this quick video:
Mike was also an avid Ham Radio operator, W8MM, earning his Novice license back in high school. He continued to support Amateur Radio and many other educational, fine arts, and philanthropic ventures throughout his career. The American Radio Relay League has a touching tribute to Mike Valentine here.
Mike Valentine passed away unexpectedly at the age of 74.
Comments