[1][2] From 1956 to 1984, he was with IBM in San Jose, California, and then, from 1984 to 2005, he was the director of the Institute for Information Storage Technology at Santa Clara University.
[3] Hoagland played a central role in the preservation and restoration of the IBM RAMAC now displayed at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California.
Hoagland became interested in the California Digital Computer (CALDIC) project being pursued at Berkeley and signed up with Paul L. Morton as research advisor and took on the responsibility for developing the system's magnetic drum memory.
Hoagland was an assistant professor at Berkeley in 1954-55, In 1953, while still at Berkeley, Hoagland received a visit from Lou Stevens[12] who had recently graduated from the CALDIC project and joined IBM's newly established west coast lab in San Jose, California led by Rey Johnson.
[16] In 1982, IBM asked Hoagland to work together with Denis Mee and Mark Kryder to establish data storage centers to promote collaboration between industry and academia.
[18][19] The Institute (IIST) was responsible for organising numerous short courses, symposia, and an annual workshop at Lake Arrowhead, California on the data storage industry and technology, including both optical recording and magnetic recording[20][21] In 2001, Hoagland established the Magnetic Disk Heritage Center (MDHC) with the mission “to preserve the story and historical legacy of magnetic disk storage at 99 Notre Dame, San Jose, California, where it all began.” Hoagland, as director of the center, secured commitments from San Jose city council to preserve this site where the RAMAC was designed and to get it designated as an IEEE Historical Milestone.
The restoration was started at IIST and subsequently completed at the Computer History Museum where the working RAMAC is now routinely demonstrated.