The Hiller Aviation Institute & Museum was founded by helicopter pioneer Stanley Hiller Jr. in June 1998.

The institute was conceived in the early ‘70s on the premise that objective presentation of history, with all its linkages and drivers, would be a logical foundation which to construct a vision of future global science and aviation.
Silicon Valley is an ideal location for an institution where science and aviation problems and solutions can be explored, evaluated, taught and communicated to the public and corporate audiences. Concentrated in this area are the talents, sciences, the progressive attitudes and capital resources needed to develop science and aviation in the 21st Century.

To accomplish these goals, the institute’s Board of Directors built a composite structure comprising the Hiller Aviation Museum and the education and research center.