[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 179 (Tuesday, December 17, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S8909]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                       REMEMBERING DR. RAY DOLBY

 Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in 
honoring the memory of Dr. Ray Dolby, a trailblazing engineer, 
entrepreneur, and pioneer in the field of sound who passed away on 
September 12, 2013. He was 80 years old.
  Born in Portland, OR and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Ray 
Dolby was a dedicated tinkerer from a young age, always curious about 
how things worked. As a high school student, he worked after school for 
the electronics company Ampex Corporation, playing a key role in 
developing Quadruplex, the world's first commercially successful video 
tape recorder, which revolutionized the world of television 
broadcasting.
  After graduating from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in 
electrical engineering, Ray began a doctoral program in physics at 
Cambridge University in England, receiving his doctorate in 1961. The 
next year, his life changed: He met the love of his life, Dagmar, who 
was also at Cambridge studying as a summer student, and the two married 
in 1966 and had two beautiful sons, Tom and David.
  In search of adventure, Ray spent 2 years traversing India as a 
technical adviser for the United Nations, working with the Indian 
Government to establish a new national laboratory focusing on the 
development of scientific and industrial instruments. Buoyed by his 
research in India, Dolby returned to England in 1965 and founded Dolby 
Laboratories, which he moved to San Francisco in 1976.
  Throughout his career, Ray Dolby pioneered many of the most 
significant developments in sound and audio design. Early on, he 
invented noise-reduction technology that eliminated the hiss that had 
marred earlier forms of tape recorded sound and in the 1970s introduced 
Dolby Stereo, which allowed movie studios to record films in 
multichannel surround sound. The innovation of surround sound played a 
pivotal role in allowing theater goers around the world to enjoy the 
sound effects in such groundbreaking movies as ``Close Encounters of 
the Third Kind'' and ``Star Wars'' and innumerable other popular films 
produced in the decades that followed. Since then, Ray Dolby and Dolby 
Laboratories have pioneered a multitude of technologies in noise 
reduction, audio and video processing, live sound, and digital cinema, 
and won multiple Emmys and Academy Awards for their work.
  While Ray is often recognized first and foremost for his 
revolutionary work in the field of sound, he and his wife Dagmar are 
also known as leaders in San Francisco's philanthropic community. They 
gave generously to numerous causes and organizations, supporting 
everything from stem cell research to community parks to the performing 
arts. I extend my deepest condolences to Ray's loving wife Dagmar; his 
children, Tom and David, and their spouses; and his four grandchildren. 
Dr. Ray Dolby will be deeply missed, but his legacy of generosity and 
innovation will live on in the countless lives he touched.

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