Optim Microwave, Inc. is a small RF consulting company located in Thousand Oaks, California. We have been in business since 1988. The original name of the company was LJR, Inc. It was changed to Optim Microwave, Inc. in 1997.
Our staff of highly qualified individuals specializes in antenna and passive microwave circuit design.
Our primary business is consulting engineering, working either on fixed price contracts or for an hourly rate. However we also pursue alliances with companies who manufacture and market antennas. The objectives of the alliances are to design, manufacture, and sell state of the art antennas. Our role is to provide an innovative design approach and to perform the electromagnetic analysis. We then collaborate with a mechanical engineer (typically an employee of our partner company) to produce production drawings.
We feel our strength is providing creative RF solutions under real-world constraints (cost reduction, material limititations, environmental requirements, etc.). We have experience from 800 MHz to 40 GHz. Our principle advantage is a suite of in-house computer programs which provides highly accurate characterizations of many types of antennas and microwave components.
The company was founded in 1984 by Leon J. Ricardi. The official name of the company was L. J. Ricardi, Inc. but the fictitious name of LJR, Inc. was used starting in 1986. In 1988 the company was purchased in its entirety by Electromagnetic Sciences, Inc. (EMS) of Norcross Georgia. EMS had interests in expanding its business into areas in which Dr. Ricardi had some experience (principally Milstar). However, while owned by EMS, LJR continued its other consulting services.
The employees of LJR purchased it back from EMS at the end of 1993. This precipitated from the employees' desire to own their own company and because the marketing efforts for EMS had lessened considerably.
In May of 1996, as a step toward his eventual retirement, Leon Ricardi resigned and started his own consulting company.
In January of 1997, the company was reorganized and officially renamed Optim Microwave, Inc. to better reflect the type of work done - quite literally, we often run computer optimizations of antennas and microwave devices. Optim Microwave, Inc. is an employee-owned company. In April of the same year, the offices were moved from El Segundo to Thousand Oaks, California.