Sarkes Tarzian (1900-October 1987) was an Armenian-born US engineer, inventor, and broadcaster. In 1907, he and his family immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and received an undergraduate degree in 1924 and a graduate degree in 1927. Tarzian worked for the Atwater Kent company and then for RCA in Bloomington, Indiana.
He founded the manufacturing company Sarkes Tarzian Enterprises in 1944, and was involved in early experiments in VHF audio broadcasting in 1946. Tarzian was a member of the Rotary Club. In 1949 he started television station WTTV in Bloomington. [1] He sold that station in 1978.
The Sarkes Tarzian company was an important manufacturer of radio and television equipment, television tuners, and components. Its FM radio receivers helped to popularize the broadcast medium. The manufacturing operations were spun off in the 1970s and today the company still exists as a broadcaster, owning several television and radio stations. Gray Television has owned a partial stake in Sarkes Tarzian, Inc., since the early 2000s.
He was survived by his wife Doctor Mary Mangigian Tarzian (1905-June 1998). They had two children.
The Sarkes and Mary Tarzian Nature Preserve in Bloomington, Indiana commemorates their names.
Delbert Charles Miller, The history of Sarkes Tarzian, Inc: The story of Sarkes Tarzian and Mary Tarzian and the industrial company they built, 1993
Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. at the The Indiana Radio Archive