The primary "customer" of Consolidated Controls was the US Navy.
Having just left Trak Electronics, another Navy supplier, it seemed a natural fit for a continuing career. I can't recall exactly when I left Trak Electronics for CCC, or how I came to know about the job. In any case, sometime in late 1962 or early 1963, I started my new job in Bethel, CT.
The Navy's nuclear submarine program was at the time fairly new. and CCC was manufacturing the control equipment for the nuclear reactors for the submarines. There were two other suppliers. The major one was Westinghouse and I believe the other was Vickers. The purpose of the control panels was to monitor and control nuclear plant valve positions, water temperature, etc. My job was to check out and test the control panels after they were installed by the shipyard personnel.
Unlike my previous work experience, the electronics involved were not transistors, but what are known as, Magnetic Amplifiers. Mag Amps, as they were called, worked well in the submarine environment because of their ruggedness and insensitivity to that type of operational environment. But it was something new to learn, and learn it I did, very quickly.
My first assignment was not far away, the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton.
That first submarine was the Lafayette, SSBN 616 and her sister boat, the Alexander Hamilton, SSBN 617.
Aside from the EB shipyard, other shipbuilding sites around the country that CCC was involved in, were the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., in Newport News VA., the Portsmouth Navy Yard, in Kittery, ME, and the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, CA. I don't remember thenames of all the boats I worked on, the only names I do remember are the Henry Clay (SSBN 625) at Newport News, VA, the Kamehameha (SSN 642) at Mare Island, CA, and the Nathanael Greene (SSBN 636) at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. The yard is pictured at the right.Portsmouth Navy Yard
I recall one incident at the EB shipyard in Groton; another close call. The employee parking areas at EB were sparse. There was one parking lot that was on a bluff, overlooking the yard. It was about 50 feet above the lower parking area and there was no fence around the edge of the lot (way before the days of OSHA). The parking lots were also assigned to the different working shifts of the yard. On one of my first visits, I inquired at the guard shack about where I could park. The guard pointed me to the upper level parking lot, the first shift parking area. Later in the day, it would become the second shift parking area.
I drove up the hill on the road to the parking lot and found an empty spot, where I parked my car. Later that day, when I went back up there, I found that I was blocked in by cars that were parked in the access way. The late comers would park there, since they all left at the same time, that was no problem for them. These people had parked there about an hour earlier, but I was trying to leave. There was another guy up there with the same problem. Looking the situation over, we concluded that we could push the car that was blocking us enough so that we could squeeze out. We would do that for both our cars and be able to leave.
The car wasn't locked, so I got in while the other guy gave it a push. The car started rolling. When it got near the edge of the lot, I applied the brake; no stop. I pulled up the handbrake; no stop. So, I opened the door and bailed out, ( one time when my jump training came in handy) scratching my leg on the door as I left. The car went over the edge of the lot, where the undercarriage dropped to the edge and stayed there. In my mind I could see this car crashing down to the cars parked below. Fortunately, that didn't happen. When I stopped shaking, I got in my car and drove down to the guard shack and told my story to the guard and pointed up to the car hanging over the edge. He didn't seem too excited about it and said he'd take care of it. I don't remember if I helped the other guy get his car out. He probably didn't want any part of my help.
When I was spending a few days at Groton, I would rent a room at the Mohegan Hotel in New London. The next morning, I drove to EB and I was surprised to see not only the car not there, but a chain link fence erected overnight.
I was working at the Portsmouth Navy Yard one day in April, 1963; April 10, 1963, to be exact. I was in the Westinghouse field office (Westinghouse was the prime contractor for the control gear at all the sites, these were the people that I reported to). The office was on the upper floor of a large building (pictured in the middle of the photo above). Through the window I could see a lot of commotion going on around a submarine sitting in a dry dock. Sailors were bringing a lot of supplies into the sub. Obviously, they were getting ready to go out to sea. Soon, the dry dock was filled with water, and later that day, they were under way.
I left for home shortly after. As I was traveling the Massachusetts turnpike, I heard a news report on my radio that a submarine was lost at sea off the New England coast. That is, it hadn't been heard from for some time. I immediately thought of the sub I had seen leaving earlier, the USS Thresher, SSN 593. I thought of all those people I had seen earlier getting aboard the sub and thinking that, now, they were no more. The next day, after confirmation, the name of the sub was announced. Sure enough, it was the Thresher.
In November 22 of 1963, I was working at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. in Newport News, VA. At noon, I left the yard and walked up the street to find a restaurant for lunch. Some guy is running down down the street, yelling, "The president's been shot." I thought he was nuts, but he kept on running and yelling. When I got in the restaurant, a TV set was playing one of the daily soaps. But pretty soon, the scene changed and the news came on, verifying the truth of the matter. The yard shut down and I flew back home. What a sad and lonely week end that was.
NNS was, and is, a huge shipyard. Most of all our warships are built there, although as far as submarine construction was concerned, EB matched its output.
While I was there, I was able to board the ENTERPRISE aircraft carrier. The Enterprise was built at NNS. Also built at NNS was the liner UNITED STATES, the largest and fastest ocean liner of her time. Built in the 1950's, but by 1969 the jet air age caught up and with a loss of passengers and with labor strikes, she was put out of service and retired to Philadelphia. Alongside the ENTERPRISE, in
adjacent dry docks, was the UNITED STATES. Together, they dominated the shipyard scene. It seemed that a person could just walk across decks from one to the other. I was standing on the flight deck of the BIG E, and I was looking down at the city of Newport News ; a great experience that I'll never forget.
Newport News, VA 1963
Nothing much exciting happened to me while I was at the Mare Island Navy Shipyard, except that it afforded me my first opportunity to see the magnificent city of San Francisco and the lushness of the Napa Valley and it's beautiful vineyards; both beautiful places to visit and enjoy.
CCC built the control gear for at least one commercial nuclear power plant. That was the Peach Bottom Nuclear reactor facility near Lancaster, PA on the Susquehanna River, on the border with Maryland. I stayed in Bel Air, MD, while I worked there, the closest town of any size with motels.
Another incident occurred; this time at the Norfolk Navy Base. George Garrity, an engineer at CCC, whom I remembered from High School, though of a different graduation class, designed a Steam Generator control unit for CCC; also a part of the reactor control system for submarines. In December of 1963, George and I went to the Norfolk Navy Yard to run a test on his Steam Generator controller on board a live, commissioned attack (aka torpedo boat) submarine. I believe it was the Skipjack, SSN 585 . It was almost Christmas, and the Navy had given us a three day period to run our test. The sailors aboard were anxious to get home for Christmas, so we were on a very tight schedule.
The tests were not going very well and George and I were working round the clock. We retired late in the day to our motel, and after a couple of hours of sleep, we were back on board. This continued for the next day. After a while, fatigue set in to the point of hallucination. I guess I was dreaming that I knew the solution to the problem we were having and that I could fix it. I began twisting dials, not noticing that I had switched the TEST-NORMAL switch to NORMAL. Soon, all hell broke loose. Horns and whistles were blowing, I could hear the steam generator huffing and puffing. The sailors were yelling and scrambling and I woke from my stupor. I switched the unit back to test and the crew finally got the system normalized and threw us off the boat. That was the end of the Steam Generator Controller from CCC, and another close call for me. I could have blown that sub out of the water. It was time to start looking for a less stressful job.
CCC was also the home of Unimation, the developer and builder of the first industrial robot, UNIMATE. Though I had no part in it, it was a marvel to watch Joe Engelberger and associates put the robot through its paces. This started the trend to what is now assembly lines of industrial robots. Just an interesting aside to CCC.
During this time, Therese was pregnant with our fifth child and on May 12 of 1964, Carole was born. Not too long after her birth we began to notice that she was having a peculiar trouble keeping her head upright. Her head would lean over to one side and we would have difficulty moving it upright. We took her to a doctor in Waterbury who initially was at a loss for an answer. But after consultations with other doctors, he suggested that a cast be put around her shoulders to include her neck and chin area. The idea was to keep her neck immobile and let her normal growth take care of the problem. Unfortunately, such an arrangement would not work unless movement was restricted from her waist up. Otherwise, there would not be enough restraining material to keep her from moving. But just restraining from the waist would not be a good idea because her body movements would cause chafing around the waist. Ultimately, she was put in a full body cast anchored to the knee of her right leg, with enough of an opening for a diaper.Now, the diaper was not fastened as normal, but just shoved into place. A diamond shape cutout was provided in her stomach area to allow for expansion of the diaphragm. Carole is pictured at right with my mother.Mom with Carole in body cast
She was in this body cast for a period of six months. During that time, of course, she was growing, so adjustments needed to be made periodically. And a miserable six months it had to be for her. Food would fall down between her chin and the cast, Diapers were not efficient in a case like that, and of course, she couldn't be bathed. Itching must have been excruciating for her with no relief available. For us, it was quite a chore. We cleaned her and fed her as best as we could under the circumstances, and carrying her around was difficult. She couldn't be put in a stroller, she had to be carried every time she needed to be moved.
The day finally arrived when the cast was to be removed. We had looked forward to that day and were prepared to carry her home in her new clothes. We just weren't prepared for the reality that would follow. Having been immobile, not being able to use her muscles for the six months, she was like a rag doll. We had to be very careful to support her fully when she was carried so as not to cause any harm. Gradually, through exercise, her muscle tone returned and to our relief, the head-neck problem never returned. Fortunately, Carole was too young to remember all that andto her it isn't even a distant memory.
Meanwhile, Raymond, Claire, Robert and Roger were all getting bigger. With the addition of Carole, our family was as big as it was going to get, or so I thought.
