Job at Signetics - 1981 - 1987When I was about to graduate from American River College with an AA in Electronic Computer Engineering, I had already accepted a position with Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo (Los Angeles) when I got the offer from Signetics. Since Signetics was in Sacramento, I backed out of the Hughes Aircraft job.
That is a Teradyne in the lower-right photo of the brochure.
In the week between graduation and employment I went backpacking with my friend from Formica, Gene Rodman, for a week south of Lake Tahoe - south of Carson Pass of Highway 88:
Too soon I was at a desk (no cubicle) learning how to program the Teradyne and support the test floor. The position was in Sacramento, but while the new facility was being built we were to work in Santa Clara for "about a month." Then there was a labor strike that delayed the Sacramento building. I didn't mind living at the Ambassador Inn in Santa Clara, rent and meals covered by per diem, June through November 1981. I shared a room with co-worker Darren Byrd. (It was also nice because every other weekend was a four-day weekend - as explained in the hire letter - and we received an unemployment check for the missed days.) Recall there were no laptops or Internet back then. To kill time in the hotel I bought some clay and made the head in the middle. Darren jumped in and made the two other figures:
One of the test floor workers was Adelfa. She had a younger sister Aurelia in the Philippines and gave me a picture and encouraged me to write and phone her. She was a year younger and had just graduated from nursing school. In February 1983 I traveled to the Philippines and got married. Another Philippine friend was Jun. This is in front of my house on Briartree in Citrus Heights around 1983 with Jun's new Celica, and my 1978 Celica in the driveway. (In 1994 I purchased Jun's Celica and drove it until 2003.)
The IBM PC was just coming out and within a year later the technicians had one that we could share. I learned Borland Turbo Pascal 1.0 and took any programming assignment that came along, such as a simple DB to track board certifications, or controlling hardware to automate test equipment. Finally I found something I was excited about doing. Although we had access to a PC, even when I left in 1987 there was no email, and our phones didn't have voicemail. So what would now be a quick email was then a production of composing on the computer, print, zerox, and route, and then place in a file cabinet:
The memo above is to "Dale Johnson." One time a new product was have a greater than 10% fallout. Dale Johnson told me "that's not possible because I set the limits based on Six Sigma deviation from the measurements of the initial sample." So when I formed an electronic music band around 1992 I named it "Six Sigma" after this incident. (I later saw Dale around the halls at HP in the late 1990's and told him - even gave him a free CD.) I had promised myself that if I could get though the Calculus I would quit and complete my BS computer science as a full-time student.
Stephanie was born March 1987. I resigned Signetics August 1987, took 21 units
of lower division at American River College, then transferred to CSUS in spring 1988. |
