Greetings to everyone. My name is Hunter and if you hadn't guessed already, I know more about Griffin than just about anyone else. Why? Because I founded, built and own Griffin. Griffin was mainly the core shell of a group of smaller corporations, and that's the reason no one really knows much about it. Just recently I consolidated everything into one frame and that's why Griffin seemed to appear out of no where like it did.
Keeping information about Griffin quiet is virtually a knee jerk response anymore because we've been doing it for so long. But as the saying goes, it's time for a little less smoke and a lot more truth.
After having scraped up the remains of the third prime runner Fuchi sent after me off my doorstep (this time with a razor blade and sending that back in a test tube so they could confirm the identity of the prime runner), I decided that it was time to meet Fuchi on their own terms.
The legal date for the formation of Griffin Industries is June 1, 2050, but I was still doing the same thing then that I had been doing for about the year before. In case you hadn't already guessed, I was running in the shadows at the time.
Anyway, after returning from a very nasty run earlier that year, I assembled several legal experts and they went to work on the problem of founding a corporation which would make shadowrunning (at least for anyone working for it) more or less legal. The corporation was initially called Speciality Personnel (Inc.), which was the original subsidary of Griffin. Shortly thereafter, I created the parent if you will, which was legally refered to as Griffin. Because corporations are required by law to report their financial states, Griffin was listed as (and remains) a sole proprietorship, which means that I personally own (and am responsible for) everything therein.
Specialty Personnel focused (and still focuses) primarily on security and counter security, including black ops type operations such as shadowruns. Virtually every shadowrunner and security specialist (such as the High Threat Response teams) falls under this branch of Griffin.
The concept of the High Threat Response team (herein as HTR team) was to provide reliable backup for the shadowrunning teams that formed the core of Speciality Personnel at that time. Because teams usually only called for backup when the situation was believed to be "unsalvagable" the HTR teams had to be equiped with the latest in military grade technology to handle virtually any situation. Initially this involved purchasing equipment from corporations such as Ares Macrotechnology, but after the first couple of weeks, I deemed that it would be more practical to design and produce such hardware.
As such, I needed a parent corporation and it was at this point that Griffin itself came into being. Griffin Industries was to be the nexus point for all related activities. Griffin Industries (or GI as it's sometimes called) was to be (to borrow a military term) the command, communication, and control center.
The years between 2050 and 2054 proved to be fairly quiet ones, where the focus was primarily on expansion and development.
Shortly after the formalization of the structure and tactical doctorine of the HTR teams were finalized in late 2050 (I was bouncing around between Cincinnati and Portland at that period of time) that Carnici Research (Inc.) appeared. I managed to locate and convince some former corporate weapons designers to take R&D jobs working for me. Several of those that I offered jobs to refused and unlike the typical corporate strategy, I accepted their decision as final and didn't press the matter further. Those who did accept the offered jobs quickly made themselves comfortable and by '54 they had developed a full line of military grade weapons of various functions. The weapon line they developed proved to be so reliable and efficent that virtually all of them are still in production today.
It was in '52 that Carnici first began looking into genetic research, primarily as an offshoot of cyberware manufacture. Because Griffin relies (and protects) primarily on shadow talent, we've found that we can produce just about anything on the market for usually less than the original manufacturer. Because Cincinnati has been one of the leading centers of genetic style research as far back as before the turn of the century, it made development and production of cyber and bioware an easy step. Hence the reason we have a full line of cyber and bioware available.
I've always been an anime buff and Ippuli Entertainment (Inc.) was created to cover the consumer goods market and actually served as the second biggest source of revenue (the largest still being black ops) during the 2050 to 2054 period. Ippuli's biggest focus is on entertainment (such as turn of the century anime and old hollywood movies) with some diversification into small appliances and such. After all, you can't toast bread without a toaster.
The Krand School of Magic was founded in March of 2051 as the primary provider of magical talent for her parent corporation and to provide magical oriented research. Because of the unique nature of the school's training, the mages it produces carry their own unique name and abilities.
It was during this time that I opened most of the branch facilities (which are listed by year in the Assets file) and formed a solid information network within the shadow community.
Griffin didn't really start to take off until Fuchi decided to renew their old feud with me by kidnapping several of my core scientists and then killing them when we tried to retrieve them. During the shadow "war" that followed, Fuchi took a rather sharp beating in virtually every area of engagement. Because I had such a large group of shadowrunners more or less at my disposal (for the usual fee, of course), it made finding and hitting Fuchi's weakest points fairly simple.
After a two week conflict that took place primarily in the shadows (and with very few casualties on either side), a truce was called at the request of the Fuchi board of directors. Fuchi's representative on Corporate Court asked that Griffin be forced to pay for any and all damages caused by the conflict. To Fuchi's unpleasant surprise, a Saeder-Krupp representative suggested that Fuchi was the one at fault and made a motion that Fuchi should be forced to make restitution to Griffin.
The motion was seconded by Ares and in the vote that followed, Saeder-Krupp, Ares, Aztechnology, and Renraku all voted in favor with Mitsuhama abstaining. The ruling of the court was that Fuchi would be forced to surrender the bulk of their Cincinnati assets (along with approximately fifteen million Nuyen) to Griffin. They also voted that the entire affair should be covered up as completely as possible.
Between 2054 and 2056, Carnici began to focus on computer technologies including the cyberdecks that we offer. If it came to a repeat of '54, I wanted to be ready.
Needless to say that Fuchi didn't learn their lesson when they repeated the incident two years later. Only this time I wasn't so nice about it. After several days of planning, simultaneous strikes against multiple facilities coupled with the mysterious and entirely unexpected (unexpected by them, that is) crash of Fuchi's Tokyo mainframe forced Fuchi to appeal to Corporate Court to halt the conflict.
I felt fairly confident on how the Court would rule (based mainly on the opinions of the SK and Ares representatives) so the ruling in my favor was of no surprise.
Griffin has always focused on the technologies that would help those who work the shadows, no real surprise since I created the entire outfit for exactly that reason. As time passed, Griffin was forced to broaden research and other areas of focus to deal with virtually any need that her people would need her for.
May you always shoot straight and don't forget to look up. I'll be here when you need my help.
Michael Joshua Whitmore,
CEO Griffin Industries.
I've listed cities with Griffin Delta and Beta grade facilities by country for convience. The ones with asteriks (*) are the Delta Grade Cyberclinics and included is the date the facility opened for reference.
