The change over from stuffy, inflexible civil service work to the dynamic, progressive UK subsidiary of the US company in Mamaronek, NY was nothing short of spectacular; the difference between chalk and cheese. Farlington was a full manufacturing plant - making all the design work, machining, electro-plating and assembly, employing about 200. I answered an advert in the local newspaper and joined them as a Product Engineer specializing in high performance RF connectors [ConHex] which operated up to 18 GHz. and were used on several NASA programs.The company was doing very well and after a year, split into two divisions: a) connectors and b) programming devices. They asked me which I would choose and I took the latter, which I found very interesting.
Whilst spending time at the open plan office, I also had to fill in for any sales engineers who were either absent or transferring. This kept me very busy, so they gave a new company car and told me to travel first class everywhere and not to save the difference in tickets! I was 22 years old at the time and at least had the sense to realize I was on the front of a big building wave as the company grew. Some of our customers were so interesting to deal with, here is a sampling:
Rogers Brothers - they made the first music synthesizers (Moog) which were used to make benchmark concerts and amazing records such as 'Switched on Bach'. They were based in Brighton, just 60 miles away, so I wore out that road.
Herbert Tools - we made the plugboards for their programmable machine tools, such as turret lathes. This gave them the ability to perform up to 48 separate operations. Their engineers were north country no-nonsense types with amazing forthrightness and integrity, a delight to deal with.
Cambridge Instruments - they used a variety of our products to make their sensitive measuring devices.
Marconi - all manner of applications, some very top-secret. I had already signed the Official Secrets Act with MoD, but had to do it again through them to make sure!
Some of the staff I remember at Farlington:
Shane Dennis - marketing executive, programming devices
Pat Simpson - marketing executive, RF connectors
Terry Ede - sales manager
Bill Robinson - finance director
Bob Scrivener - office manager
Maureen Blyth - receptionist & wife of the famous circumnavigation sailor"
Hi Bill
ReplyDeleteMy father, Peter Davies, was one of those sales engineers you may remember. I certainly remember Shane and Terry's names.
Dad joined Sealectro in the mid 60s , and loved it. He finally retired from the place in the 90s. He's no longer with us, but it's great to hear that people still have some loyalty to what seems to have been, for more than a few, a genuinely good place to work.
Hi Jon
ReplyDeleteyes I remember Peter very well. He was the Wise One and always had time for me to answer my stupid questions. He was certainly a 'character', a good drinking buddy and always has a good tale to tell. Definitely not the suet pudding couch potato homoginised lack-lustre politically motivated gutless wonders which frequent corporations today. Did someone sat post office? Rant over, back to being only just socially acceptable.