Elographics, Inc. was founded by ten stockholders in March, 1971, to produce Graphical Data Digitizers for use in research and industrial applications, with the principal being Dr. Sam Hurst. He was on leave from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to teach at the University of Kentucky for two years, where he was faced with a need to read a huge stack of strip chart data. It would have taken two graduate students approximately two months to do the task. He started thinking of a way to read the charts, and during the process, the "Elograph" (electronic graphics) coordinate measuring system and Elographics the company were born. The University of Kentucky Research Foundation applied for and was granted a patent on the Elograph. The Foundation granted an exclusive license to Elographics.