I awoke the other morning at 3am worried that so much Tek History is slipping through our fingers as we discuss a piece here and a piece there, I wanted to provide some way to collect and archive this information.

We have the technology, but I am fast losing the bandwidth to do much about any solutions myself. In this vein I am asking for Volunteers that can dedicate some time and energy towards developing methods for recording our history, and displaying it on our website and Museum.

I began with a website “Button” named EMPLOYEES, and below that level I came up with several categories:

1. Biographies

2. Technical Excellence-Hall of Fame

3. Oral Histories

4. Photo Books

5. Recollections

As for Biographies or Autobiographies I envision individuals, family members, or co-workers writing Biographical sketches about family members, co-workers, or themselves, that describe their time at Tektronix. For example, John Kobbe has written some anecdotes regarding his experiences, Jack Day has written three papers regarding his personal experiences opening Field Offices for Tek, and his experiences working on the TEK/US Government Lawsuit. We are aware of Miles Tippery’s autobiography which we will reprint. [we now have Employee Stories,  Customer Stories, and Employees pages]

I had spoken with a few folks already about replicating the B50 Hall of Fame for Tek patent holders, to live on forever in our Virtual Museum, as well as in our Brick and Mortar Museum. As Tek continues to atrophy, we would like to ensure these Honorees, and their commitment to “Technical Excellance” are not forgotten. [we now have a Patents page]

If persons are not as prone to writing at length, perhaps they can share shorter writings under the Recollections heading where smaller anecdotes can be posted. [we now have a Customer and Employee Memories and Short Stories page]

For those that don’t care for writing altogether, we have small Digital Voice Recorders we can loan to record Oral Histories or Biographies in their own words, or perhaps Volunteers can be interviewers?

We have a large collection of Tektronix Photo Books that include photos, names, and in some cases departments where employees worked since the early Fifties, to the massive May 1970 (last) Photo Book containing approximately 13,000 Employees. What if, we could scan, and OCR the names of all former employees shown in these books, and invite them, their families, or co-workers to find their names in our database and allow them to post Recollections about them on our Museum website? [we have scanned the photo book and offer it for sale on our eBay store]

Please select an area that would interest you and you could spare the appropriate effort to make it happen.

Sincerely,

Ed