by Tony D.
I started my career at Lockheed in Sunnyvale,
California, in July 1960 as an assembler doing wiring, soldering and building
parts for the space program. After about nine months, I became the lead man
with 21 women and three men achieving zero defects. I was good at building RF
cable assemblies and became interested in the RF field. I became a technician
in the electromagnetic research test lab. I then moved on to research and
development as an electromagnetic technician for eight years.
In 1964, I worked
on an antenna project that consisted of two teams, with one technician and one
engineer per team. The first team got its antenna to work. The part I worked on
with my team did not. After about eight months of trial and error, we were
ready to scrap it after trying everything known to science. In our shop, we had
a small metal brake that I used to bend the flairs on the antenna. The brake
was too short to bend the full length that was needed, about eight inches too
short. I had to splice pieces on for testing. I decided to leave off the extra
pieces, centered it and ran a test. It worked perfectly! We completed the final
product and went on to other projects. Three-and-a-half years later, the
division manager told me it did its job and I received a commendation.
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| I've always loved mental challenges! |
