The firm was founded in Crystal Lake, Illinois, moving its headquarters to Rancho Bernardo, California, in the late 1970s and again to Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1990.

[4] Oak manufactured radio components, such as tube sockets,[3]: 1269  for the next decade and a half before finding success with television tuning dials (rotary switches) amid the mass introduction of TV in the early 1950s.

Initially only used to support Oak's own materials processing division, Oak-Mitsui grew rapidly in 1979 and by next year was the third-largest supplier of copper foil in the United States.

Service began in Los Angeles in April 1977;[15] it soon expanded to seven other metropolitan areas, including Detroit,[16] Phoenix,[17] Miami–Fort Lauderdale,[18] Cincinnati,[19] Chicago,[20] Dallas–Fort Worth,[21] and Portland–Salem.

[22] Like other STV operations, ON TV consisted of a scrambled feed of content broadcast over conventional UHF stations, which was designed to especially reach areas not yet served by cable.

[24] Oak moved its headquarters to Rancho Bernardo, San Diego,[25] in 1979, to keep a better pulse on the entertainment industry that produced their content.

Amid investigations with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding Oak overstating earnings in 1982 and the use of Carter's wife to provide interior design services,[27] lawsuits with shareholders,[1] and debt to creditors,[4] Oak (by this point the sole owner of ON TV in Los Angeles[28]) sold ON TV's last remaining operation in Los Angeles to competitor SelecTV in 1985.

[34][35] Oak had ambitions to expand into the nascent world of direct broadcast satellite systems and programming, though it scaled down its goals due to increasing costs.

[36] However, when major cable services including HBO and Cinemax sought to encrypt their satellite signals, rival San Diego firm M/A-COM Linkabit was chosen over Oak to develop what became VideoCipher II, the industry standard.

[39][25] His resignation culminated a year in which the company held its annual meeting near its Oak Materials plants in Hoosick Falls in upstate New York, with some shareholders suggesting the decision to do so was calculated to dissuade attendance.

Pending patent infringement suits against Zenith Electronics, General Instrument, M/A-COM Linkabit, and several other television equipment manufacturers also promised a trickle of profit in the meantime, according to McNeely.

[27] During a heated two-hour debate in the company's annual meeting, MIM chairman David A. Stevens charged that Oak had treated him with "offhandedness and contempt", indicative of the company's overall treatment of its shareholders, while a smaller stakeholder felt that Oak's $14 fall in the stock market price from 1982 was indicative of the need "to shake things up a little bit".

[47] Within two weeks of control, Hills's team hired Rex W. Warden of Aerojet General as president pro tempore of Oak and shut down their TeleFinder division, which was staffed with 45 employees and ran an online classified advertising service.

[3]: 1269  In February 1990, Oak's California headquarters was put on the market, and the company commenced the move to Waltham, Massachusetts, in Greater Boston, after starting the divestiture of its communications division.

Standard Grigsby, an Illinois-based switch manufacturer and an old competitor of Oak's, had moved from Arlington Heights to Aurora to Sugar Grove.

[58] In 1996, the company sold Nordco to Bank One Corporation, having previously determined the subsidiary to not fit Oak's telecommunications focus.

[59][60] On November 15, 1999, Oak agreed to be purchased by photonics company Corning Inc. for $1.8 billion, amid a wave of consolidation in the optical industry; the deal was completed on January 28, 2000.

[62][63] In 2016, the Willow Creek Community Church in Crystal Lake, Illinois, laid out plans to the city to acquire Oak Industries's former 193,000-square-foot (17,900 m2) factory on 100 South Main Street, for conversion into a megachurch chapter.

Aaron Shepley, mayor of Crystal Lake, remarked that the factory was integral to the city's history: "I think it's very appropriate that this becomes a center point through Willow Creek's redevelopment.