Hugh has had a wide variety of experiences during his career which started at age nine ending with retirement from the Xerox Corporation at the end of March 1995. During that span of years, Hugh held numerous management positions in a number of companies in the Los Angeles area. Actually, he had a dual career path which included both industrial positions as well as a 27 year teaching career in electronics at El Camino College.
The career at El Camino College was as a part time night instructor position but was a continuous one. The courses taught included theory and lab for electronic communications, electronic fabrication, industrial electronics and various courses including radio and TV troubleshooting, test equipment, etc.
Starting from the last position, Hugh was the Product Assurance Mgr for an electro-optical manufacturing operation within Xerox. The operation designed and built modulators and drivers for 300-600DPI electronic laser printer systems. His Xerox positions included reliability engineering-to-manufacturing interface, Quality Assurance on Xerox computers and a few other programs.
Prior to Xerox, Hugh was the Quality manager for Gulton Industries. The position included management of all quality functions such as quality engineering, receiving inspection, product failure analysis (chemical, mechanical and electrical), line and test functions in manufacturing. Hugh did all of the quality proposals involving Government contracts, of which there were a great abundance. The products involved electronic power systems used primarily in space vehicles. The most famous project was the U.S. Space Laboratory that orbited earth, which used a Gulton designed 400Hz three phase power system.
Before joining Gulton, Hugh was the Product Assurance Manager, Facilities Superintendent and Facility Manager for one of the Raytheon sites located in Hawthorne. The main product developed was an advanced stand-alone communications van that was developed by the local engineers for military applications. The van consisted primarily of a 10kw and 1kw multiple sideband (four independent sidebands), three multiple sideband receivers, 128 channels of crypto, teletype and a 20 independent line dial telephone system. The radio equipment covered 2-30MHz in 10Hz steps The van setup was supported with a remote control unit which would control the transmit and receive channels, route phone and crypto connections. The telephone system alone was a marvel for its time. As an example, the phone system could have the various lines spread out to many different locations, and from a designated command position, the telephone could control the transmitters and receivers via the remote unit in addition to providing dial telephone communications between phones.
As an example of use, the van could be placed on a remote island and within a matter of 2-3 hours, the island could have a fully functional dial telephone system in addition to crypto, teletype and radio communications.
Hugh held positions at various companies including Ryan Electronics and Hughes Aircraft. At Ryan, Hugh was responsible for the building and testing of parabolic antenna systems operating in the 13GHz band. The systems were four beam radar systems used for on-board navigation of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. One system built as part of a Hughes contract was for the first soft moon landing. Hugh’s name is inscribed into the waveguide which now resides on the moon’s surface.
Work at Hughes Aircraft involved both quality management and missile engineering/test functions. The first project involved work on high speed indicators, like an oscilloscope, but specialized for the Atomic Energy Commision. Later, Hugh’s project involved the Falcon Missile where he was involved in the antenna head torquer design and testing. Two methods were used with the earlier design being a DeArsonval movement used with a radar illuminated target, and the second was a friction torquer used with an IR detector on the nose. Yes, Hugh had the opportunity of talking to Howard Hughes on two of three meeting occasions.
Following his time in the Air Force, Hugh both attended and worked for the University Of Illinois. The work position was in an Ultra Microwave laboratory under contract to the Atomic Energy Commision. The contract involved the development of both hardware and sinewave signal energy in the frequency bands between 94-264GHz. Hugh’s responsibility was to develop the detector and frequency multiplier semiconductor materials suitable for use at those frequencies. The work involved developing vacuum systems, an ion implant/bombardment system using alpha particles, waveguide hardware and test facilities. Hardware such as detector mounts, frequency multiplier mounts, semiconductor diodes from boron doped silicon and the processes involved were produced and delivered to the Atomic Energy Commission. Following de-classification, the same information and similar hardware was delivered to two commercial waveguide manufacturing firms for the development of products for the commercial market. During this period of time, Hugh interfaced with Dr. John Bardeen, one of the 1947 Nobel prize recipients for the development of the transistor.Others associated with were Dr’s Paul Coleman, Joe Stafford, Andrew Swago and Richard Becker.
During Hugh’s stint in the U.S. Air Force, he was stationed at Chanute AFB in Illinois for nearly four years. Following induction, he attended an electronic training program in Biloxi, Miss., and was then assigned to Chanute where he set up and taught electronic theory and troubleshooting techniques for electronic flight simulators made by Link. After teaching in the program for nearly two years, Hugh became a technical writer for the flight simulator program. During the latter two years in the Air Force, Hugh wrote six electronic theory and trouble shooting manuals used for On-The-Job training at Air Force sites around the world. Each manual covered a different simulator representing a different aircraft. Some of the aircraft covered by the manuals were the P80 (T-33) Shooting Star, F-94, F104, F86, B47, B52, C47 and C46. While writing for the various aircraft, Hugh traveled to the AF bases where the particular aircraft was based and a simulator had been set up for the pilots. Each such simulator was studied and a manual written for maintenance personnel.
During the 1968-1978 period, Hugh and Norman owned and operated Electro-Tone Corporation. The company was located in Santa Monica, California and had 2300 dealers international. Products made by the company were aimed primarily toward upgrading Hammond organs made between 1934-1968 with additional products made for utilizing obsolete Leslie SpeakersTM for applications other than for organ usage. Some of the products produced were: Reverberation units, Drawbar selector switches, String bass units, Amplifiers, Power supplies, etc.
Degrees and licenses:
- Three degrees in electronics and electronic education. Minors were obtained in automobile repair and wood technology.
- Full time life California teaching credential (designated subjects).
- California Registered Professional Engineer – Quality Engineering – Retired 2005.
- General Class Commercial Radio Telephone (formerly First Class Radio Telephone)
- Extra Class amateur.
- Single and multiengine land – commercial pilot’s license.
Article and book writing:
- Six Air Force Flight Simulator training manuals, each the size of a Sears catalog.
- Two books on receivers (self published).
- One book on “The FM Multiplex System”. Describes how stereo audio is decoded from an FM signal.
- A book on the “History of Semiconductor Development and Hugh’s Involvement”.
- Current article count exceeds 230 covering the subjects of electronics, ham radio and of general interest. The magazines in which published were Western Radio Amateur, Ham Radio, QEX and 73 Amateur Radio Today. Several amateur radio club news bulletins carry or have carried various of Hugh’s articles.
Hugh Wells 
