A page to hang your thoughts, stories or
memories.
Write it down and send it
in!
While I was
doing research on Accelerators Inc., I found reference to a
document that was available, “for viewing only” housed
at the AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER in Austin Texas. I had to go
check this out. For people not from Austin, the history
center…….. “Provides the public with information about the
history, current events, and activities of Austin and Travis
County. We collect and preserve information about local
governments, businesses, residents,
institutions, and neighborhoods so that generations to come
will have access to our history”. For anyone still in Austin,
or plan to visit, I recommend it!
It turns out it
was a copy of the annual shareholders meeting book that was
mailed out to all the current Accelerators Inc., stockholders,
as of Nov. 15 1979, announcing the planned merger of the
company with Veeco. Complete with all financial statements,
the overall company condition and the voting ballots. It
contained a lot of information about the company. Accelerators
was in dire straits. The company was operating at a loss, the
AIM 210 was eating resources and the bank was calling in a
loan for over $500,000. Bernard Peskin, Chairman of the Board
and President, put together a deal that would keep the company
out of bankruptcy and certain closure. He even arranged a loan
of $150,000 from Veeco to keep the company afloat until the
merger went through. Bernie got $1.0625 per share (1,995,799
outstanding shares) and Veeco took over all debts. Not bad
considering.
I asked the man
in charge of the records at the Austin History Center why they
would keep an annual meeting report at a place like that. He
said a document like that was donated to the center because of
its impact to the early development of Austin as a high tech
city.
I guess he was
right, 30 years ago when Austin was still a sleepy little
college town, besides the State and a few other companies like
Tracor, employment options were limited. Accelerators was one
of the first “High Tech” research endeavors that helped boost
the entire semiconductor industry. They lead, others followed.
It was great to be a part of it. Despite the fact that 30
years later Austin’s natural beauty and quality of life has
suffered because of the international recognition and
uncontrolled growth that followed. Oh well!
Bob Griffith
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I worked
at AI from late 76' to mid 79' moving through the ranks from
assembler to final test then went on to work in wafer fabs
only to return in 85' as a field engineer and lasted till
closing in 87'. I had for forgotten about the
preselected locations for the trashcans, <grin>, I do
remember a trashcan having it's bottom blow out because of LN2
getting dumped into it after a refill of the old leak
detector...how bout' remembering the view of Joe Cecil sitting
on top of an energized high voltage terminal looking into a
viewing port to see the effects of his ongoing beam focus
technology experiments in the Industrial Blvd. bldg... I'd
love to hear from all of you folk's. Picnic time!
Philip G. Teague.
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Does anybody
know what this is? From the NRC website. Registry of
Radioactive Sealed Sources and Devices Active Vendors/Active
Products by Vendor Name. Here
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Vividly
remember all the rental car episodes, the Halloween party
where I won, dressed as a female, the silicon grease on the
phone earpiece pranks. Loved it when Scotty Hicks was a
victim, asking Steve McCarty if he wanted to lose his job over
it!! Jim Candela mentioned the huge gas leak......are we sure
it wasn't Steve McCarty himself?? How many remember
demolishing the tool cabinet after Stan Meyer got let go?
Skateboarding on the assembly floor? Beadblasting my car parts
in the beadblaster and later hearing someone complaing about
grease in there.......oooops. Seems a wonder we stayed open as
long as we did!!
Kenny Ebersole
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I vividly
recall my first day as Final Test Supervisor (1983) when at
about 7:30 PM while doing time cards, there was a major gas
leak in the manufacturing area. You see, Steve McCarty was
doing some gas box work when a 7X gas bottle full of ASF5
suddenly released itself in his face. The whole manufacturing
area was a white cloud of HF vapor. Steve, and a few others
stumbled towards the door with me following. I detoured to
plug in the exhaust fan, but it seems someone stole the power
plug from it! Once outside we were all coughing and spitting
up junk, and then rinsing our faces off with water from a hose
hanging out of the engineering lab window. Then we realized
the machinists were still in the shop working away…....Oh,
remember the bead blast room?
Jim Candela
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Young,
dumb, 20, fresh out of the navy. Answered ad for an
electronic assy, for a company on Industrial Blvd.
Turned out to be just a bunch of tin shacks tacked
together. Know locations on the floor where we put
trashcans to catch the leaks when it rained. Was not
on the line long before Jim Candela dragged me to the final
assy floor. So started my downward spiral into this
god-forsaken industry. I did meet and work
with a great bunch of guys, Dave Bell, Aaron Johnson, Roland
Rivera. Thou some of us have moved on we are in touch
from time to time.
Glenn Hazleton
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