Do you want factual technical history of the Northwest? There will be a treasure trove of resources available to you on October 2nd at the 2013 OctoberBest Expo. One of the booths at this year’s event will be hosting the passionate engineers from the Vintage Tek Museum. This museum is a separate entity from Tektronix itself; they simply house vintage Tektronix equipment.
The organization is extremely engaging and open to showing off their wares. They are internally funded by engineers and kept together by a balance of volunteers and or hobbyists working on and repairing the multitude of scopes and test systems on site with the intent of making them original. This even extends to the effort of finding original parts for 40+ year old machines wherever possible.
Dave Brown, an engineer at the museum, joined Tektronix in 1976 and retired in 2010. Initially he was hired as an electrical engineer and held various design engineering and managerial positions with the numerous divisions in Wilsonville doing graphic terminals. Eventually he became Vice President of Manufacturing and Factory Service for the Video and Networking Division (VND). When that was spun off in 1999, he became Vice President of Central Engineering for all of Tektronix and held that position for 10 years. All in all, over his 34 years within the business, he worked in the three key groups in Tektronix – Computer Graphics, Video, and T&M.
The next diligent worker is Stan Griffith who was a calibration engineer at TEK, starting in June of 1960; he also spent many years in technical sales. He is a modest guy who goes out of his way to say that he is not a real engineer, but a repair technician. Stan has an excessive knowledge regarding every product that TEK consequently made in the 25 years he was there.
The last engineer highlighted is Ed Sinclair who is the Chairman and Cofounder of Vintage Tek. He worked at Tek for over 20 years and was last the Business Unit Marketing Manager for accessories- this responsibility covered over 7000 products. Between these three men, there is over 75 years of Tek knowhow.
Amongst these three past employees as well as current engineers John Addis, Bruce Baur and Phil Crosby, there is a wealth of historical information as well as a viable understanding as to where the innovations from the 2013 market originated. These engineers do it for the love of the industry and their NW roots.
The museum is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 AM to 5 PM. Admission is free of charge, but guests can put a couple of dollars in the fishbowl at the front desk and the trip is still an inexpensive excursion into what made the Pacific Northwest the hub of high development. Visit the experienced and passionate engineers at the Vintage Tek Museum booth at the 2013 OctoberBest Expo on October 2nd. To learn more about the museum and its history, visit their website or in person at 4620A SW Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy, Portland, OR 97221.