Job Trainee program to the USA, Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden - 1977
Sifting through another batch things at the attic of my mother's house I found the since long disappeared trip-report from the 1977 USA trainee program at my University in Gothenburg - Chalmers, a program with aim to find intern-ships at US high-tech companies for those interested in pursuing such a thing.
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| The board members |
Fall 1976 I
decided to engage in the executive board of USA 1977, a committee with the task
to find trainee positions at several US companies for the 1977 coming summer. I
was elected for the position of “annons-chef” basically marketing and sales
manager and my role was to find financing for the trip by sales of products and
to engage companies willing to pay for advertisements in our trip report. I
also was responsible for the assembly of the trip report to be published fall
1977. I was that successful in my duties that product sales and advertisements paid
travel costs for all participants, for more than 20 people and also resulting
in a good surplus distributed after the trainee programs were concluded, fall
1977. My big disappointment and that still makes me sad, that the position with
Osborne and Associates in Berkley California reserved for me was stolen by member
in the board a few weeks before the whole group was going to travel to
California. I found myself with nothing after having worked so hard for almost
a year apart from studying. I had almost given up; when a company south of San
Francisco signaled that they would take a trainee. I got my US visa delivered
from Stockholm with the train driver at the platform the very same day I was
taking the train to Stockholm for the Iceland air flight to New York. My heart
almost stopped several times during the final weeks before the set departure
date.
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| The cover page, shot by me |
Below is my
personal translated (Swedish to English) trip report from being a trainee at
SBE Inc. Watsonville, California in 1977. I will be ever grateful to the
company for hiring me and the family that opened their house to me d2uring my
employment.
The cover
photo that was used on the front page of the trip report magazine, is my own,
taken while passing through Washington D.C. on the way to New York and the
return to Sweden, late August 1977, the year when Elvis passed on to his fellow
stars.
Trip-report from intern-ship at SBE Inc., Watsonville, California, summer 1977.
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| Me, with a California style moustach |
Watsonville
is a small Community with a population of 16000 souls, situated in a green and
fertile area where agriculture, the “Artichoke”, comes before technology, close
to the home of the world famous writer, John Steinbeck that is Salinas, California. Only one and a
half hours from San Jose and its Silicon Valley, add another 30 minutes north
and we’ll reach the beautiful city of San Francisco. As in the song by in
Sweden famed Evert Taube: “here I came on the horse-back, an evening in April
because I had a lust for tango”, if not, I came by bus from San Francisco the
fifth of June, 1977.
SBE Inc. is
a small company that specialized itself on communication radios, the 27 MHz
public band (Citizen Band Radios). SBE was until a few years ago part of the
company Linear Systems. The part of Linear Systems responsible for
communication radios was to be liquidated depending on an uninterested market. A
few of the engineers (not sales or marketing people) had luckily observed a
pick-up for the citizen band. The TV-series “Truckers” had made people reflect
over the usefulness but perhaps more over owning a CB-radio. These enterprising
engineers bailed their department out of Linear Systems and it did not take
long before newly formed company needed to expand. The CB-radio boom started to
fade but it did not take more than a year before the real interest by the
public awakened. Companies within the CB-radio business started to mushroom. SBE
managed to keep the lead as being able to attain knowledge and establish a
working customer service department. Most of the CB radios/products on the
market 1976 were 23-channel systems and therefore when the FCC (Federal
Communication Commission) decided that USA should migrate to a 40-channel
system, it descended like a bomb on the companies in the CB-business and also
being stricter with the purity of the signals generated by the CB-radios
power-amps. From first of January 1977, 23-channel CB systems were prohibited
for sale. The FCC made their decision public, December 1976 so people stopped
purchasing 23-channel systems like stepping on breaks in front of a red light.
And that was not enough of bad news, big players like Motorola started to dump
prices ahead of the FCC decree as if they already had got insider information.
Many businesses specializing on CB-radios had a hard time to survive, many went
out of business.
One of the
contributing factors that SBE still is alive today was that SBE had some
mobility built into the work-force and that the company was known to be a
quality brand. Just before my arrival, around 30 persons had been laid-off in a
variety of positions and then 12 more had to go during my 2 months stay with
the company – June and July 1977. Being laid-off in the US differs from how it
works and happens in my part of the world – Scandinavia; you have no clue about
what is going to happen when your manager comes to your work-place with your
last pay-check, asking you to pack your
things and leave.
This year –
1977 – the profit sharing would be none because of bad results. An employee,
whoever, could get around 6000 US dollars apart from the regular salary.
SBE as well
as the Swedish company HANDIC had its factories for the production of its consumers
outsourced to Japan. Design, quality control and marketing is done from its US
headquarters here in Watsonville. The staff of designers is composed to about
half-and-half Japanese engineers and US engineers, the Japanese from a cooperating
Japanese company. Development is swift even though at this date not without observing
other manufacturers. As of the transit to a 40-channel system all companies
involved are interested in a common standard, where it is practical and
feasible. Out-of-the-box thinking has led to concepts like digital synthetization
of frequencies, selective calls and the use of microprocessors to do most of
tasks earlier done by discrete digital logic. When I “landed” at SBE, the company
was evaluating a system based on the SIGNETICS 2650 microprocessor as intelligent
controller and signal management unit. The processor is used for among other
things, a programmable digital filter for code detection at selective calls. To
get a speedy delivery for custom designed integrated circuits was close to
impossible even though the distance to the more advanced suppliers, INTEL and
MOTORAL was less than 2 hours by car. We could within the course of one day
take a ride to INTEL to discuss details but using a microprocessor
short-circuited this need.
SBE and
other companies within the CB radio business expects a return to better sales
around beginning of 1978, that is when shelved 23-channel products are
predicted to run out.
One thing
that drew my attention is the companies’ use of non-technically educated
personnel within quality control, maintenance and customer service. The use of
such resources makes the company more agile when there are changes in the
market and salary costs will be lower. Most of the technicians have got their
education within the army. Many of my co-workers at SBE have been in the
marines or the army up to more than 7 years of duty. The shift from a draft
army to a professional one will most likely change this situation.
There is a
lot to say about CB-radios but what is worth mentioning are the social aspects
of its use. Almost everyone in my vicinity owned one of those devices. Boys and
girls made dates over using their radios, prostitutes made their business
available over the waves. You go out with your car for leisure and you meet
people on the road over the “waves”. A person finishes work and while being in
the car contacting his/her partner so that warm food timely will be on the
table when he/she gets home or to ask if there would be something missing at
home to pick up at the supermarket. One priest in LA gets to the road to
harvest lost souls using the CB-radio as the “fisherman’s” net. The list for CB
usage could be made long but instead I’ll brand the USA - CB-country.
Two months
in Watsonville, California have been nice and rewarding. Anywhere I put my feet
I have been greeted by warm, friendly, open and interested people. As I before enrolling
the Chalmers University Electrical Engineering program was out working in the
industry for a while (designing a 4004 Intel microprocessor PC in 1973, like
Bill and Stephen) I have been able to study differences between people and
methods in the industry in different places. There is a lot to consider before
graduating.
/Ralf Gummerus
