In 1981, with the Cold War in High gear and Pentagon budgets climbing, three highly trained and well-connected friends, Gene Ray, Ed Knauf, and Jack McDougall, envisioned a bright future in their own defense contracting business. After a modest beginning, their company was on its way to becoming a defense powerhouse when the Soviet Union, archenemy of the United States for more than 40 years, crumbled with astonishing speed, and U.S. defense spending dwindled in response. Many defense contractors foundered, but the turn of history only triggered phase two of The Titan Corporation's American success story. The stock price of defense companies began a downward slide, and though much of Titan's business was involved with C[superscript 3]I contracts, it could not escape the "taint of the Star Wars brush." As the government pulled back on defense spending, Ray and the company's other leaders shrewdly moved Titan's technologies into commercial markets. At the same time, Titan made strategic acquisitions to round out its project capabilities and put a sharper focus on C[superscript 3]I (command, control, communications, and intelligence) technology -- one of the few defense segments that escaped the Pentagon's budget cuts. Titan also began to diversify by exploring new technologies with potential commercial application. The Legend of The Titan Corporation, by Jeffrey L. Rodengen and Richard F. Hubbard, tells how intelligence, ingenuity, and hard work have built Gene Ray's Titan into a giant in fields as diverse as information solutions and services for the U.S. government, e-business solutions, and electron beam irradiation technology, which destroys harmful pathogens on medical devices, food -- even the U.S. mail. Carefully researched and packed with telling photos, this highly readable history captures the patriotism and purpose of a legendary American corporation.