An Alabama Boy and the Birth of Silicon Valley

Few people would expect that someone born in the small town of Gadsden, Alabama during the Great Depression would end up being involved in everything from the US Navy to the Atlas II ICBM missile, but Ernest Jerry Collins did just that. After serving in the US Navy as an Electronics Technician, he used the GI Bill to earn his Bachelor and Master degrees in Physics. His career included working at a small TV repair shop, Convair-Astronautics, Electro Instruments, American Systems, Teledyne, Hewlett-Packard, Fairchild, Technology Development Corporation, Teknekron, Systems for Automatic Test, and Spectrum Solutions. At Fairchild he worked on LED products and the A7 Corsair jet fighter for the US Navy. His HP career began in the Dymec Division with RF and Microwave Test Sets, and included the HP 2115A and HP 2116A minicomputers, the HP2590B Microwave Frequency Converter, as well as the HP5100A Frequency Synthesizer. Challenges in delivering complex integrated products led HP to create the HP Systems Division, where he worked on test systems for the Royal Swedish Air Force's JAS-37 Figgen jet fighter. At Teknekron he helped develop a banknote sorting machine dubbed "The Money Machine" for Citibank.