It is Fall 1958. Just five years ago, we were involved in a "police action" in Korea against the Red menace. This action killed
thousands of American GIs, produced no clear winner, divided a country into North and South, and scared the American people. America is ten years into the Cold War and Soviet and American SAC
bombers regularly fly to their fail-safe points. Primitive, but deadly, nuclear-tipped rockets are pointed at us. We are pointing back with our own hardware.
The Reds are about to launch the
first man-made satellite into space starting the space race.
A new solid-state amplifying device is showing up in consumer, commercial, and military electronics equipment. The aerospace
industry in Southern California is tooling up for the space race and the Cold War while the semiconductor industry in Northern California is rolling out device after device and is all abuzz about a new component
called the "chip". The boom in aerospace and the semiconductor industry is creating an insatiable demand for electronics technicians. California's schools are struggling to meet the demand.
Federal help is on the way. Realizing that America's schools are still functioning with an agrarian model curriculum, Congress steps to the plate and provides funding for technology education at the high
school and community college levels. Known as the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), it is beginning to influence science and technology education in the high schools and community colleges of
California.
It is in this climate of technological change and challenge that a group of electronics instructors gathers together at Modesto Junior College and forms California Council of Electronics Instructors
(CCEI).
Within months, an organizational constitution and by-laws are written an approved. A slate of officers and board members is nominated and elected to office.
CCEI launches a Fall and Spring
Conference schedule along with weekend and summer workshops. The teachers fight the tubes vs. transistors battle. The organization leads the way into digital and microprocessor education. San
Jose City College and College of San Mateo launch an initiative to build digital logic trainers and to hold workshops to teach the teachers about this emerging technology. Diablo Valley College and Lawrence
Livermore Lab bring affordable microprocessor trainers to the schools of California as well as lengthy summer workshops designed to teach the teachers about this emerging technology. A core group of high
school instructors in the Bay Area band together to develop affordable and exciting, as well as educationally sound, projects for high school electronics programs.
CCEI later merges with a similar
teachers group in Southern California and soon holds conferences and workshops through the state.
To learn more about the organization, visit our list of
