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also see A Short Bio

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Proposed web site - updated Nov 2008
appended material

Life and Times of Measurex
Late of Cupertino, California
Once the Big Frog in the small pond of Paper (and other sheet products) Process Control!

The goal of this page is to be a start for *someone else* to build an effective history, with stories and people, of that up-and-coming and highly admired Measurex Corporation of yesteryear. ("We" were right up there in local status with Hp - great management and a great place to work.)

This is a story that requires inputs from many people. No one sees the total picture.

Not even Big Dave, who did indeed "walk the talk"!
Many ex-Measurex people use this e-mail list service.
Please excuse this "bottom up" approach, that is my view point ;-))
Most company histories are written from a press release and/or management view.
I am pleading "equal time" ;-))

This is Dave Bossen at a reunion of ex-Measurex folks at the Duke of Edinburgh - Cupertino January 7, 2006, almost 40 years after he started Measurex. There is a rumor that he still plays a good game of golf. Good straight drives, ... when pressed for a weakness, the informant said that his chip shot game could improve ;-))
About 50 of us ex-Measurex folks had a good time telling of the past and what we are doing now :-))
(Update - Photo of Big Dave at Jan 2007 Reunion courtesy Jeanne Whitmer)

Some Proposed Sections:

Years later, after I was gone -

Process control pioneers pass torch as new era begins in industry - 1994 interview with Dave Bossen. local copy.

  • Measurex sold to Honeywell - Year 1997 - all cash about $600 million.

  • A few years later, Honeywell was bought by Allied Signal, which renamed its self to "Honeywell".
    Allied Signal/Honeywell was strictly bean counters squeezing cash cow old Measurex. see below

    Epilog

    Destruction of Measurex, From Dirk DeMol - December 2005
    The "destruction" of Measurex was because of many factors. Honeywell just being one of them.

    Some of the initial strikes against Measurex within Honeywell were caused by some executives stacking the books in their favor when they retired. That caused the year after their retirement to be a disaster which caused Honeywell to come in heavy handed.

    Most of the decline in engineering was caused by a changing market place. Instead of people designing boards, compilers and control design software, we just bought PCs and off-the-shelf software. We just could not charge $5000 for a black & white daisy wheel printer anymore. Or $25000 for a "DataTranslator" if much better functionality could be bought with a $100 Ethernet card in a PC.

    Dirk De Mol
    National Instruments

    Dodie, (spelling corrected by Alison (Bossen) Tahl ) From Chere Nijim - January 2006
    Thanks you for enlightening us about the stories of MX and the beautiful memories you shared with us. Mr. B is definitely looking well.

    I reported to DSB [Dodie] and I enjoyed working with her and for her. She was a delightful and colorful person. The simple pleasures we share the secret things we share and the secret delights we shared in one with the other. A gift indeed, was she. She definitely know people and could read you like a book, and very charming as well.

    I appreciate you saying such nice things about her. I even went to her memorial. She did a lot of good in her life, from "Woman of the Year" in Silicon Valley to V.P. of Corporate Communications.

    Sincerely,

    c.n.

    If you have comments or would like to do a MEASUREX page/site, Send e-mail to Ed Thelen

    Back to Home Page

    Construction at Measurex 
    
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jeanne Whitmer 
To: ex_mx@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:37 PM

> > Hello fellow Ex-MXers!  Here is a message from Paul Lannus, who is 
> > looking for some assistance on a project he's working on.  He was 
> > referred to the site, and so I'm forwarding to you his message.  I 
> > hope some of you can help him:

> > ------

> Greetings!

> I am working on a project that concerns the
> construction of the One Results Way campus - work in
> the 1970s to be specific.
> A bunch of former MX officers suggested I check with
> you alums. 

> We would like to chat with anyone that worked in
> Operations/Building maintenance or has any
> recollection of the original construction and
> expansion projects that went on at the Measurex
> Cupertino campus.

> I can be reached by email at plannus@yahoo.com or
> telephone at 415.267.4058.

> Thanks,

> Paul Lannus
    Coulda Shoulda Woulda - response from Ed Thelen

    I had an 1st floor office overlooking the Mx construction of the building that housed that deep (2.5 story) parking lot. Down and down, round and round - like they almost needed an elevator.

    What turned out to be the most eastward building on the "campus".

    Being a techie, I was fascinated by the digging, re-enforcing, concrete pouring, ... of that building.

    I took lots of pictures of all phases visible from the outside - but everybody else was properly bored with them and I pitched them out during my move to Fremont from Cupertino about 10 years ago :-((

    Watching digging that hole was FUN. I suppose the techniques were standard, but getting the dirt and later the machinery out was fascinating to watch.

    What may not be obvious,

    - there were serious attempts to stabilize those large vertical underground walls.
    Large boring machines, like those used to drill telephone pole holes were used to drill *long* (what appeared to be 40'?) diagonal holes (maybe 30 degrees down from horizontal) which then had re-bar and concrete inserted.

    I don't think, not sure, that they used tensioning techniques like in prestressed concrete slabs. And far down on the bottom floor and support columns had lots and lots of re-bar - like the re-bar salesman made a mint.

    I watched and photographed every day - sorry Big Dave, I also did a little productive work ;-))

    One day in the big hole, there were the usual supervising and whatever people in their yellow jump suits (never seemed to get muddy) and yellow hard hats. Suddenly one of the people moved in a way that only a woman (or impersonator) moves.
    I got all excited and called people in - "Look - one of those people down there is a woman!!" The person moved again - indeed - all agreed that was a woman. I guess they had a lady engineer or inspector. Later she came up and took off her hard hat, yup - acts and looks like a woman - on a construction site no less

    I felt sorry for Mx - putting all that money into a hole in the ground. We all had teased the administration to build enough parking - - but I think they over did it :-(( Sometimes one should be careful what one asks for, one might get it :-(( The upper structure was standard tip up slab construction.

    Is this the kind of whakky stuff you are looking for??

    I have a Mx oriented web page at http://www.ed-thelen.org/Measurex.html

    --Ed Thelen

    Turns out "they" want info on dates, contractors, plans, permits, ...

    Mud Wrestling !
    This is favorite tale of mine. (Ed Thelen)

    In the early 1980s, the Saddle Rack was in downtown San Jose. It was a very large bar/dance hall/place to hear canned and live country western music. It also had a prominent mechanical bull the folks tried to ride, with controls from gentle to Moon Shooter.

    Soon we at Measurex heard that there was "mud wrestling" going on there Saturday nights.

    The general plan was that two young ladies, who were quite athletic, would wrestle guys from the audience in a ring covered several inched deep with mud. We had heard from magazines that this was the latest fad, and here it was in San Jose. OK?

    Soon we heard that teams of folks would pool their money so that their designated person could wrestle the young ladies. That there would be an auction preceding the event, and the winning group would have their person wrestle the young ladies.

    And the bearer of the news thought that we of engineering software should pool our money and have Tai Chen, a software engineering manager, be our hero.

    Tai Chen was all of 5'5" tall, quite popular, a practical go-get-er, but no one would consider him a threat physically. His wrestling name would be "Too Tall Chen" ;-)) What the heck - we oughta have some fun!!

    Somehow a pool of $120 dollars was collected and that Saturday night a delegation of mostly Measurex software engineering showed up at the SaddleRack to participate in the excitement.

    There was a crowd maybe 150, a wrestling ring with maybe 3 inches of mud in it, some means of keeping the mud mostly in the ring, and a master of ceremonies. The master of ceremonies started out explaining that this was not ordinary mud from some back yard, but sterilized filtered clay to remove sand, rocks, and other possibly harmful material. Among other things, the mud would reduce the impacts of falls.

    The two young ladies, in bathing suits and caps, maybe 115 pounds each, were introduced and gave a maybe 30 second example of their wrestling prowess. They flipped each other about, pinned each other, and it was obvious that they were athletic, agile, and used to the mud ring.

    The master of ceremonies then announced the terms of the wrestling, the auction, and the constraints on the challenging wrestlers. The heroes would wear heavy boxing gloves, presumably to restrict pinching, hair pulling, scratching and gouging. Also, the hero would have his feet tied together to prevent kicking.

    Then the auction started, our $120 pool was quickly exceeded and a group offering say $250 won. Their hero appeared, and he was a maybe 200 pound hairy muscular specimen - with the humor of a brown rock. The wrestling started, and it was quickly obvious that the two young ladies could do nothing with that 200 pound hairy chimpanzee of a guy. If they tried to pin him - with one arm he could flip a girl off, get up, and chase them around the ring again.

    It was scary. I was impressed with how little a 115 pound woman could do against a 200 pound guy. If he can keep his hips rotated a little to protect his gonads - she has no apparent chance. Anyway - the event was over - we (or at least me) went home somber.

    Well, lets try again - but Tai Chen decided he did not want to be our hero again. Who would volunteer? The search was on - Mike Powell was persuaded to be our hero. Lets introduce Mike Powell, Mike is your basic nice guy, a kind of Dilbert. No bad jokes, quite serious, hard worker, handles practical mathematical questions with ease, stable temper, wife and maybe three kids, one adopted?, goes to church, teaches Sunday School, not known to drink, ... maybe 5'11", 200 pounds, works at building/improving his house in the mountain/woods near Cupertino. What an unlikely hero for mud wrestling at the rowdy SaddleRack bar.

    A much larger bidding pool of maybe $300 dollars was collected, and down to the SaddleRack we went. This Saturday night the bidding was not so vigorous, and we got our hero, Mike Powell, into the ring for something like $180.

    The boxing gloves, leg restraints and swimming cap were placed on Mike - and the action started. Mike and the girls were wonderful. Mike had a sense of humor we had never seen. He and the girls were rolling around in the mud - It was quickly obvious that Mike could take care of himself, but restrained himself from pushing hard and soon we were enjoy the humor of the participants.

    Now, I cannot tell you how folks wrestling in the mud can cause an audience to start to smile and relax. But we did. Maybe the contrast with the previous Saturday's gorilla made us feel better about people and guys and gals - who knows - but they had fun, and we had fun.
    Unbelievable - fun mud wrestling - you must be kidding !! But I'm not.

    The event was over too soon, and the participants were wiping their faces, shaking gloves and laughing.

    Mike - Thanks much for the memory.

    The world indeed can be a fun place.

    Carol Gilbert offers (March 13, 2006)

    Software Training, Software Maintenance/Configuration:
    Software Training:
    The first person to try to pull thoughts and documentation together to help newcomers to MX Engineering was Diana Tingley. When she left for HP, Matt Guerrieri gave me a shot at it since I had been integrating systems for a year and had a teaching credential. Ultimately I was able to hire Susan (Cox) Hernandez, Jan Mitchell, and Joan Hebert. We had a great time indoctrinating all the new people into the paper biz, plastics, VISION, HP systems, DEC systems, process control, and whatever else we were called upon. Thank you Burt Kendall for the wonderful overviews you helped out with. You were the only one who had a handle on the "big picture."

    We also gathered the resources that were present and eventually ran a library with a collection focusing on programming languages, process control, other technical disciplines and my full set of Dilbert books thrown in. Dave Bossen once called it "The World's Smallest Library." Yes, but we could always find what people wanted from the books or the archives of magazine donations. It wasn't a pretty site after the Loma Prieta earthquake!

    Software Maintenance/Configuration:

    When Rowena Koch left, Randy Kalmeta felt I could take on the SWM team too. My wonderful group consisted of John Charlton, Vicky Stewart, Haruko Vultee, Polly Noyce, Cyndy Hiatt, Linda Borg, Alice Huang, Mike Olensky, Cathleen McCann, Kathy Weill, Maureen Maris, Marge Bogen. Apologies to anyone I've missed.

    Little did I know how emotionally charged the words "release" and "update" were . Nor were letters and numerals straightforward. We created a whole new alphabet. To save my sanity I wrote two editions of "In Search of Euphemisms," the first in 1983 and the second in 1988. If we weren't releasing new software, were we disgorging it? liberating it? unfettering it?

    Characters of note:

    Steve Cabot, our homeless employee, who lived in his truck in the parking lot, The Duke of Dork who stuck to you like flypaper, Holly who had a special relationship with the Xerox machine, Jerry McCann and Mike Powell--to know them was to love them, Claudia Mc Queen whose silhouette made strong men crumble, Tom King, who besides being the best VP, made April Fool's Day special, Pat Van Munn who lived by the credo, "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission."

    The Grade Program:

    I started at MX when it had to be run from multiple boxes of punch cards. God help you if you dropped them!

    The SYSGEN program:

    Why did I think that every time I submitted it was the final one?!

    Carol Gilbert
    carol.gilbert@comcast.net
    www.carol.gilbert.name

    Tom Wilson offers (March 19, 2006)

    Engineering Lab
    It's kind of funny to see some of the names from so long ago. I read the bio of Measurex.

    I worked there from Jan. 73 until about May of 80 and previously worked for one of the vendors who produced sub assemblies for MX, 7 Associates the company owned by Dave Meader's Dad, Dave Sr.

    I started out in manufacturing and worked for Fred Moulton, then made a series of jumps. The tobacco system prototypes were all built by me and Sandi Swain (who can forget her voice) under the direction of Ron Smithson. I worked in the engineering lab with Pete Wellington and built the first X-ray based ash sensor for system 307 (Finch Pruyn Paper) in Glens Falls NY.

    I finished up in the system configuration department working for Ken Meigs. I was part of the "flying" group which included Ken, Bill Davis, Bill Rink Bob Micelli and a wannabe named Connor Vlacancic (sp). I owned the green Mooney, and the white XK-E Jaguar that often sat next to Bossen's Mercedes 450/

    I currently live in Boise where I inspect aviation assets for the Department of the Interior, and still fly.

    One correction in the bio, the cafeteria manager was named Gerta Thiem. She personally witnessed the destruction of Dresden during the war, and later went to the former East Germany in the later 70's. She had a drop dead gorgeous daughter who I once took flying.

    Tom Wilson employee 636.

    ...how would I know....Why should I care..?

    Sean Maxwell offers (March 31, 2006)

    "a refreshing company to work for" - the correct word at last :-))
    Hi,

    I was bored and decided to look up Measurex, and was amazed to find your site.

    I was an employee from 1978 to 1986 based in the UK.

    I was taken on as Field Engineer for the "new" Energy Systems having had Power utility experience.

    I worked my way up to Applications Engineer having changed disciplines from Energy to Paper to Plastics and Metals.

    They were some of the best years of my life. I found it a refreshing company to work for, and particularly enjoyed my training / visits to Cupertino, Waterford and Cork.

    I now live in Richmond, Virginia.

    Power to you!

    Sean Maxwell

    Results Guarentee :-)) (October 13, 2006)

    from Scott Mayer from [ex_mx]

    Sometimes the results guarantee was an offer of a refund of the price of the system, less the portion paid for initial services [usually 205].

    If the customer was not satisfied for ANY reason, they could return the system for a full refund of the system price less the initial services.

    The evaluation was to be performed by the customer in any manner they chose.

    If they weren’t satisfied, we were allowed the opportunity to improve the performance or situation to their liking.

    We didn’t get many back.

    Best regards,

    Scott Mayer

    from Jeff Mitchell from [ex_mx]

    What we used to do on the DMC side (metals, mostly zinc coatings) was to offer a guarantee for a certain extra price. We would guarantee, for example, a 50% improvement in long term variation. If we did not meet that, we would refund a prorated portion of the purchase price, for example 10% return at only 40% improvement, 20% return on only 30% improvement, etc. On the other hand, part of the agreement was for the customer to give us a 10% premium if there was a 60% improvement, 20% on a 70% improvement, and so on.

    No one EVER took us up on the offer! But just the confidence we showed gained us a 90% market share (North America) in metal coatings during our heyday.

    Jeff Mitchell

    from Mike from [ex_mx]

    From my experience in the UK it was always difficult to get the customer to come up with reliable QC results. Generally, you had to help them out first with training on how to establish good practices in quality checking of their own product!

    I lost count of the times that I went to a site to follow up on an installed system only to find that the only quality check was a battered old hand micrometer with a bent pointer that (when it wasn't being used to measure) was being used under the leg of the qc bench to stop it wobbling.

    ...

    Best regards

    Mike Howard

    Stories from Harold Welch

    Mathew St. & shipping - received May 31, 2008

    One of the things about Mathew St [1st home of Measurex] was shipping. There was no shipping dock and we didn't even have a fork lift. Loading a scanner was an "all hands" effort.

    We would borrow a fork lift from the company next door and the driver would load one end of the scanner onto the truck while everybody else steadied the other end.

    The fork lift would come around to the other end of the scanner, lift it up and then push the scanner into the truck. Everyone else steadied the scanner the best we could.

    Harold

    While I'm thinking about it, here is another story

    Control Tuning

    In the first days of System #1 in Ripon, the system was turned off at night because we were not sure what it would do when it wasn't attended.

    After the sensors were operating, the next thing was to get running was control. Simpson Lee was a challange since it made fine paper in short runs.

    One of the founders of Measurex was Eric Dahlin. He was well known in the industry for his control techniques and alogrythms.

    The control constants were determined by a bump in the process. The results were measured with stop watches, lines on the two pen recorder, rulers and slide rules.

    Eric would determine the constants and had the field engineer put them in the computer. He would calculate the numbers to 5 places and complain about computer round off. "Lambda should be 3.8754" he would say. After watching the process for a while he said "Make it 4".

    The first sucessful Measurex grade change was made by a Simpson Lee backtender long before grade change was implemented in the software. He simply changed the BW target by 20lb not knowing the equipment was not designed to do it.

    It was a little bumpy, but the machine did it.

    Regards

    Harold

    Here is the slide rule story. received March 15, 2007
    -----------------------------------------
    When Measurex was the new kid on the block, the main selling point was digital control. Industrial Nucleonics was still selling the analog functions.

    Ed Richter decided to prove the digital superiority.

    He had some 6 inch slide rules made with the Measurex logo on the back.

    At his first opportunity he went to a meeting with the management of a paper mill in the North East.

    He handed out the slide rules and papers with a sample math problem, to the mill management.

    He then pulled his new four function calculator out of his brief case.

    He told them he would show the digital superiority by a race between the slide rules and the calculator.

    He turned on the calculator and the battery was dead!

    Ed said that the mill manager peered over his glasses at him and said "Son- Does your system run on Batteries?"


    That was the last of the slide rules.
    They became available to some Measurex employees.
    I still have mine.
    ------------------------------------
    By the way, I was the first field engineer at Simson Lee in Ripon, (Employee 65) before I ended up in in engineering. I spent every year at TAPPI and CPPA supporting the equpment.

    I worked for Gene Stinson and then Tom King. When I left, I was the manufacturing engineering manager.

    Harold

    When the first building was built in Cupertino, a new road was constructed to get to the parking lot.

    Measurex was able to name the road.

    An employee contest was held for the best name and the winner was "Digital Drive"

    Dave in his wisdom said it did not describe the company values and chose "Results Way"

    Harold

    The work load in the early days required a lot of overtime.
    It was common for people to be there Weekends and holidays.
    I suppose that never changed.

    One 4th of July we were there getting ready for a customer visit.

    Jim Holdorff (sp), a floor tech working for Bernie, made the observation --

    "The nice thing about Holidays is that there is no traffic on the way to work"

    One of the first systems was Interstate Paper located in Riceboro GA. (System 7)
    It was sold by Chuck Worthly, one of the first and most successful
    salesmen. He was known for his sales ability and his frugalness.

    The mill manager explained that Riceboro was a depressed area and
    people were not used to full time jobs. Some people would work until
    they had enough money to survive and then quit for a while.

    He told the story of a janitor that approached him one day.

    The Janitor asked "Boss, what do we do here?"
    He replied "We make paper"
    The janitor asked "Is that all we do?"
    He replied "Yes"
    The janitor observed "It sure seems like it would be cheaper to buy it"

    Anything that can go wrong ------

    I was hired by Gene Anderson in 1969 and the company was in Santa Clara at the time.

    Mounted and framed on the wall in Gene Anderson's office was a printed circuit board.

    It turned out that it was an interrupt priority jumper board for the HP2116.

    The board required only one trace between two pins.

    It was designed with the trace was on the wrong side of the board.

    Murphy ruled again, and Gene had a quality talking point.

    Scanners and High Tea

    The first system built in Europe was system #16 for Bowaters in Sittingbourne Kent England in early 1970. The system was put together in the small town of Whitchurch in Shropshire England. This location was selected because Dave Patterson knew people there. The assembly took place in a foundry. Tony Foskett had the most headaches in this operation. My effort was incorporating subassemblies shipped from Matthew street, and test the system.

    Our mill interface was a gentleman named Dennis Lord. I sent the scanner installation drawings to him, and he noticed a mistake in the scanner length dimension. To make sure the scanner was the right length, he traveled the 200 miles (Yes it was miles in those days) up to Whitchurch.

    He broke out his tape measure and found the scanner was 1/2 inch short. We heard about that 1/2 inch everyday from then until the scanner actually shipped to the mill.

    At the mill, when the scanner was lifted and moved to the stands. it was obvious that the stand on the backside of the machine was 2 feet from where it should have been and that there was a large air duct in the way.

    We didn't here about the 1/2 inch after that.

    ----------------------------------

    On a personel note: My oldest son was born in Westminster Hospital in London during that time.

    View from the field, Rob Brauns (Dec 15, 2007)

    Hi Ed,

    Interesting site you have. Finding this site is pretty amazing because I remember my days at Measurex well. I was hired in 1983 as a Field Tech in Canada. I was sent to Iroquois Falls, which is about as far north as you can go and still be connected to civilization by road. Meausurex sold the mill at Iroquois Falls a DEC based system with the auto calibration feature. The DEC unit didn't have enough memory for this software and the instrumentation guy at the mill knew it. I finally managed to fudge a scan showing that the software was in fact installed. I remember Iroquois Falls for another reason well because I got called in one Sunday morning because one of the rolls of the stack has broken our scanner. The "stack" is the final stack of rolls maybe 8 of them in a vertical frame before the paper goes on the reel. The top roll had a bad bearing which knocked the second roll down into the pit. Our scanner was bent and had to be replaced. The paper mill insisted that I remove the radioactive part of the head and place it in an unused room. I wanted to remove the whole scanner head but the mill insisted that I remove only the metal can holding the beta radiation source. This was a Sunday so I had no choice. Boy was the mill floor ever deserted as I walked to the unused room with this little metallic can in my hand. By Monday Atomic Energy Canada and even Cupertino where getting involved and they all insisted that nothing be moved or removed. By then of course it was too late. It took my boss 3 days to get to Iroquois Falls and then he finally believed me when he saw the scanner all bent. Before that nobody really believed me when I told them what had happened but there it was. Probably the only damaged scanner in all of Measurex.

    I later moved south to St. Catharines, Ontatrio and worked for several mills. The mill in Thorold made recycled cardboard and had an HP something that the guys in Cupertino stole from a museum. While the modern mills had a pizza sized floppy disk to load the programs, this Measurex unit had a glorified 8 track reader that required one to hand type 28 lines of code to be able to read the tape. It never worked the first time but we'd clean the tape heads with alcohol and then cross our fingers that it loaded. If it crashed, we'd have to reload and retype those 28 lines of binary code. It sometimes took hours to get the system running again. I wanted to make a copy of the one tape that still worked but nobody had any documentation so we prayed that the system never broke.

    The other mill I remember was the Kimberley Clark tissue mill with one of Measurex's least thoughtful inventions. The C scanner. This C frame scanner is a testament to what happens when electronics people design something mechanical. The scanner rode on the same 8 wheels that the I-beam sensors rode on but the C frame had this gigantic thing made from ¼" plate steel shaped like the letter C. The C frame probably weighed 2 tons. Well, those 8 wheels were constantly wearing down. To make matters worse tissue dust would come up and get flattened under the wheels making the heads shake more than an elvis doll so we'd have to change the wheels a lot. We finally resorted to changing the wheels at every shutdown but after a while Management complained that we were spending too much on wheels. The work around was to order wheels for other mills (there were about 4 mills within a 6 mile radius) so we wouldn't get called in at 3:00 am for bad wheels. The other thing I remember is that the scanner would not see the magnetic reed switch and over travel. The closed end of the C would break the paper so we'd be called in for that. At shutdowns everything appeared normal so it took us techs forever to figure out what was wrong and it was me that found the problem. While running, the moist tissue dust would short out the magnetic reed switch signal making the scanner think that it had traveled all the way to the one side when it fact it would only travel a bit. Then the scanner would go into some kind of calibration mode and scan until it found the limit switch which would break the paper. We finally solved this issue by adding a second magnet to the scanner arm and using silicon on the terminals whenever the reed switch was replaced. That C scanner was by far the most repair intensive piece of equipment that Measurex ever made.

    I also had the distinction of getting called in to repair a system that had failed because the mains had shorted. At the back of the Measurex unit where 3 long vertical power strips that feed the various pieces of equipment. The wires had rubbed along these strips wearing through the insulation and causing a massive short with sparks. I remember the mill guys clapping when I was trying to figure out what went wrong and then there were massive sparks flying out of the Measurex unit. They thought it was me that caused the problem. I bowed gracefully and called my boss who was still sleeping. Then the big boss Dennis reminded me that I seemed to have my share of problems with Measurex. After that I left for Europe.

    I did like the TR job because I had lots of free time to take off during the day but that pager was a pain. I also remember my 6 weeks in California. Gee sunny weather, lots of pretty girls and great food. The mid 80s were interesting times for me.

    Oh, you can email me at rbrauns@arcor.de if you have any further questions.

    Kind Regards, Rob

    MX product pictures from Tom Steele ( steeletom at shaw dot ca )

    The "basetrimmed" note means I (Ed Thelen) trimmed off the base to give better detail to the display

    Mx-1000
    -1969
    Mx-1010
    -ca-1970
    Mx-1000
    -ca-1972     (1.)
    Mx2000
    -1974     (2.)
    Mx-Metals-1050
    -1976

    Mx-2001
    -1977a
    Mx-2001
    -1977b
    Mx-2002-OCC
    -1980b
    -basetrimmed
    Mx-2002-OCC-PTR
    -1980c
    Mx-2002-OCS
    -1980a
    -basetrimmed

    Mx-VISION-2002
    -console
    -1983a
    Mx-VISION-2002
    -consoles-ptrs-cabs
    -1983b
    Mx-VISION-DynaView
    -consoles
    1. Harold Welch says "The 1000 ca 1972 system is actually a 1500 system. Note the two color panels. It was the first system to have a CRT instead of the storage scopes. It was invented between the TAPPI and CPPA shows one year."
    2. Harold Welch says "The 2000 ca 1974 system was installed in Vancouver Washington. This was done secretly months before the 2000 was announced."

    Gunnar Wennerberg - RIP

    One of my favorite people, and Measurex had a high percentage of good people, was a Swedish gentleman named Gunnar Wennerberg - who died July 1, 2008 -

    Gunnar worked in sensors, and lived about a block from me in Cupertino. I tended to visit with him at work rather than home - I guess our kids were very different ages.

    Gunner would tell of working with Bill Lear

    (Info from resume) 
    M.S. Equivalent, Electrical Engineering, 1942, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
...
1947-52 LEAR, INC 
      ... autopilot and general servomechanism development ...
...
1954-59 LEAR, INC, (now Lear-Siegler).
      ... avionic devices... transistorized servo amplifiers .. airborne navigation ...
1959-  Lockheed Missiles ...  Manager ... fuel cells  .. digital telemetry ...

    In WW II Bill Lear proposed and apparently manufactured a good enough control for the tricky problem of controlling the turbo superchargers on high altitude bombers in WW II. Apparently he made enough money to later develop the small business jet called the Learjet 23. Lear had no aircraft design or manufacturing education nor experience, but selected inventive skilled people, which led to the development of a very successful aircraft - and Gunnar was one of those -

    According to Gunner, Lear's next project was a steam car. A prototype was made - but it seemed to have the following unresolvable problems:

    1. Mileage per gallon of fuel was poor compared to the then current gasoline engines
    2. Cooling the steam for the closed cycle of water/steam was a big problem. Even the outsides of the doors were used as part of the condenser - a safety hazard.
    3. Even though a "flash boiler" was used to try to speed getting steam when someone wanted to drive the car, it took almost a minute from "turning the key" to having enough steam pressure to drive down the street.
    Apparently the last was the project killer - Bill figured auto drivers would not wait, and therefore would not buy!

    Then Gunnar worked for Lockheed, but the dynamics of mass hirings and lay offs did not agree with his organized soul.

    In about 1970?, Gunnar joined Measurex as part of sensor development. The following are my recollections, corrected by John Dahlquist, Thanks much John :-))

    It is my impression that Gunnar worked on many gauges but his specialty was the thickness (caliper) gauge. I understood he had several patents on it -

    If I remember that gauge was so good that some folks bought the gauge as a separate item and tried to use it with competitive equipment -

    The software to use it was a combination of simple and complicated.

    • The thickness determination was relatively simple. Convert the frequency (difference due to the separation of the inductive lower and upper parts) to separation - a relatively straight forward formula
      - with minor correction due to the different compressions of different grades of the paper

    • The control of when to close (make the gauge touch the paper) and open the gauge was more complicated -
      • It was a contacting gauge, the two parts coming from the bottom head and the top head - You (the software) closed the gauge when the gauge was "On-Sheet" and opened just before going "Off-Sheet".
      • If you closed the gauge before it came on sheet, the rapidly moving paper generally cut through the rubber bellows that helped the gauge flex with the rapidly moving paper -
      • Worst case, either the top par or bottom part of the caliper head got sawed off by the rapidly moving paper and thrown some distance down the paper machine - maybe never to be seen again.
      • Also worst case - Sawing off of the gauge could tear the sheet of paper - further irritating the situation :-((
      • Going "off-sheet" with the gauge closed was not very cool either !!
    So, Software/Control had to be sure that the
    - offset from the center line of the scanning head was correct -
    - the edges of the paper were REALLY where you thought they were -

    But the gauge was a winner, apparently the best in the industry :-))

    Gunnar got many complements on it -

    John Dalquist e-mailed

    He also was responsible for Mx using the Microwave gauge, on an OEM basis from a Swedish company.

    He also proposed the Z-sensor, which ended up being a joint invention of Gunnar (who proposed it as a correction to the way the scanner distance changed and thus affected the basis weight gauge), myself who took his idea and made it work, first installed in Australia) and John Goss, who was the Sensor Group boss. Enough said.

    We sensor people thought the only real problem with the caliper gauge was that the S/W could not be relied on to know off-sheet vs on- sheet. This could hardly be a hardware design fault.

    Getting Started

    from Mark Humphreys November 14, 2008
    I remember very few of the people there now---but I do remember two people very fondly---Carl Deck, the colorful retired Navy postman (and WWII/Korean War vet) with whom I worked in the mail room, and Doddy {Dodie?] Bossen, who was always kind to me during my short stint at the company.

    At age 21 I had just moved back to Northern California in early 1979 and, to make sure I had some income, had taken a job at a Jack in the Box restaurant in Saratoga while looking for a mail room position (which was where all of my experience was at the time). I had searched for weeks in the classifieds, going to interviews without any luck. I was staying at the time with some friends of my parents who lived in Cupertino, and every day on my way back to their house I passed by One Results Way. One afternoon after a particularly disappointing day of job hunting, something compelled me to pull into the Measurex parking lot and simply walk in the door, without any appointment, and ask for a job. It was one of those divine moments that never leaves me, no matter how old I get.

    It turned out that just that day Doddy had agreed with Carl that the mailroom needed an extra hand, and she was preparing to place an ad for the position. I’ll never forget how amazed Doddy was that I walked in right at that moment, or how quickly we hit it off. I had a job right there on the spot, and started the next day.

    I gave two-weeks’ notice to Jack in the Box, figuring I could grind it out working graveyard, then 8 hours at Measurex immediately thereafter, for a small amount of time. I learned differently very quickly. On my second day of work at Measurex, I arrived about 20 minutes early from my restaurant gig and figured I’d take a short nap in my car. I woke up three hours later, ran in to the mail room, where Carl (who had assumed that after my first day I had just walked out) gave me some good-natured razzing and Doddy never said a word about it. On one of my breaks that day I called the manager at Jack in the Box and told him I was done. I worked at Measurex until March of 1980, and I’ll never forget the warmth and family atmosphere that existed there at the time.

    Thanks for the site and the opportunity to remember a very happy time.

    Best,
    Mark Humphreys
    _______________________________________
    Mark S. Humphreys
    Vice President/Director of Risk Management
    Watt Companies
    2716 Ocean Park Boulevard \ Suite 2025
    Santa Monica, CA 90405-5209
    PH \ 310.314.2503 FX \ 800.856.4520
    EMAIL mhumphreys@wattcompanies.com
    www.wattcompanies.com

    Hardware/Software/Management integration Mar 2009

    I was "talking" (e-mailing) a very experienced IBM manager (had managed the 1401 project in 1058) who expressed the idea

    A Basis Weight document July 2009 - A tale from Ed Thelen 

    
I had a techwriter friend, 
   who got a contract with Measurex.
The six month contract was to write the manual for calibrating
     a sensor which measured the weight of fiber in paper.
The weight of fiber in an area of paper is called "Basis Weight",
         that is the weight you see on a ream of paper -
            like 20 lbs.
Basis Weight and moisture are prime things to control in the 
          paper forming/drying process.
(The paper goes by the gauge at up to 30 miles/hour.)

a) He talked with sensor engineering how to do it.
     He wrote that up to their satisfaction.

b) He showed it to the people who actually 
       took customer samples and provided
       initial calibration for systems being shipped.
    They said his document was all wrong.
     He got into some trouble trying to get
     sensor engineering and the calibration people
     to reach a consensus.

c) He showed the confused consensus to the field people,
   They did not adjust factory calibrations that way at all -
      and gave him their inputs.

d) By that time, the six months was up -
       - My friend's attempted document was not published.
       - He was not invited back.
       - There never was an approved document developed -
       - This was at Measurex, the world leader in
          paper process control for over 20 years -

    The Spirit Lives On - Sept 2009
    from     Matthew Morycinski

    Just found your page about Measurex. I am a technician at Honeywell, formerly Measurex, QCS integration facility in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. Started in the fall 2007. Many techs and assemblers have been around much, much longer. They fondly remember the Measurex time, when the company splurged on parties and such. The company name may be different, but the spirit that drives the place seems to have survived. There is a lot of camaraderie that makes it such a nice place to go to every day! Nice to see that the history of Measurex is not being forgotten. Keep up the good work! 
    
Glad you enjoyed   :-))

I [Ed Thelen] worked a number of places before -
   and one since -
but Measurex was tops  :-))
    IBM only second ;-))

Hard to explain 
   - we of course bitched about the imperfections of life
   - we sometimes wondered about where Mx got their 
         comparitive salary info they quoted
       didn't seem to match the job offers we were getting
   - people did leave 
        some felt Measurex was getting too big
            or the valley too crowded
        one software integration guy had a knack with people
            and selling realestate - left (1980?), was last heard of
            making big bucks selling commercial properties
            in Los Angeles 

But even folks that left thought very highly of Measurex --
    "I would like to stay but ..."

There are some stories yet to come,
     but Big Dave figures that people don't need to know -
           so - we will see -
     I think he would have made/is a great poker player -

Ed Thelen