Thanks for calling me Jack. I am so sorry to learn of Deane’s passing.
Deane was a man I greatly admired, both as a Tek employee who put the company first, and as a man who was strictly honest.
He was greatly admired too by many, probably most, of the folks in engineering jobs at Tek.
He conducted meetings for years during product development to make sure the designers followed the procedures and requirements
specified by the new product introduction system called the phase system. He presided over those meetings in a no nonsense
way and required that honest answers were given to the question in that system as a way to help make sure the products
were ready when they were introduced into manufacturing.
Deane dealt with the entire engineering folks in product design at Tek, and was not limited to
just a small part of the company. As a result, I think every engineer knew who Deane was and what his job was to help insure the
products were meeting specifications and time lines. He actually scared some of the designers who feared him and his meetings
but we had become friends by then, we were both honest, and so the meetings I sat in on for my products went along just fine.
When I joined Tek in 1960 as a design engineer I was really wet behind the ears. Deane was sort of a scary guy to me then.
I was assigned the job of making a high voltage power supply for an oscilloscope’s Cathode Ray Tube that was short proof.
I was charged with making sure if someone accidentally shorted the high voltage to ground the transistors would survive
and the high voltage supply would not be damaged but would recover and work fine after the short.
The power supplies we had then were not short proof and with the introduction of transistors , which were rather
fragile, not well understood, and very expensive, used in the new product I was working on I had to try a new
circuit design to see if it was short proof. Needless to say I ruined a number of transistors. Finally I walked into
Deane’s office to ask for yet another transistor he became angry because of the costs I had already sort of wasted.
But I felt worse about it then he did and I stood up to him face to face and challenged him to do the job!
I told him this was new territory and it was a cut and try process until one was found that worked!
That calmed him down, he smiled, and we were friends from then on.
I would like to attend any service planned for Deanne. If no service is planned I understand.
Please consider this email my sympathy card for a man I greatly admired, liked, and whose company and
sense of humor I greatly admired.
And I hope this helps you understand how much Deane meant to me. GOD Bless him, you two, and all who loved him.
Bob Johnson