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While I was doing research on Accelerators Inc., I found reference to a document that was available, “for viewing only”  housed at the AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER in Austin Texas. I had to go check this out. For people not from Austin, the history center…….. “Provides the public with information about the history, current events, and activities of Austin and Travis County. We collect and preserve information about local governments, businesses, residents, institutions, and neighborhoods so that generations to come will have access to our history”. For anyone still in Austin, or plan to visit, I recommend it!

It turns out it was a copy of the annual shareholders meeting book that was mailed out to all the current Accelerators Inc., stockholders, as of Nov. 15 1979, announcing the planned merger of the company with Veeco. Complete with all financial statements, the overall company condition and the voting ballots. It contained a lot of information about the company. Accelerators was in dire straits. The company was operating at a loss, the AIM 210 was eating resources and the bank was calling in a loan for over $500,000. Bernard Peskin, Chairman of the Board and President, put together a deal that would keep the company out of bankruptcy and certain closure. He even arranged a loan of $150,000 from Veeco to keep the company afloat until the merger went through. Bernie got $1.0625 per share (1,995,799 outstanding shares) and Veeco took over all debts. Not bad considering.

I asked the man in charge of the records at the Austin History Center why they would keep an annual meeting report at a place like that. He said a document like that was donated to the center because of its impact to the early development of Austin as a high tech city.

I guess he was right, 30 years ago when Austin was still a sleepy little college town, besides the State and a few other companies like Tracor, employment options were limited. Accelerators was one of the first “High Tech” research endeavors that helped boost the entire semiconductor industry. They lead, others followed. It was great to be a part of it. Despite the fact that 30 years later Austin’s natural beauty and quality of life has suffered because of the international recognition and uncontrolled growth that followed. Oh well!

Bob Griffith  

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 I worked at AI from late 76' to mid 79' moving through the ranks from assembler to final test then went on to work in wafer fabs only to return in 85' as a field engineer and lasted till closing in 87'.  I had for forgotten about the preselected locations for the trashcans, <grin>, I do remember a trashcan having it's bottom blow out because of LN2 getting dumped into it after a refill of the old leak detector...how bout' remembering the view of Joe Cecil sitting on top of an energized high voltage terminal looking into a viewing port to see the effects of his ongoing beam focus technology experiments in the Industrial Blvd. bldg... I'd love to hear from all of you folk's.  Picnic time!

Philip G. Teague.

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Does anybody know what this is? From the NRC website. Registry of Radioactive Sealed Sources and Devices Active Vendors/Active Products by Vendor Name. Here

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Vividly remember all the rental car episodes, the Halloween party where I won, dressed as a female, the silicon grease on the phone earpiece pranks. Loved it when Scotty Hicks was a victim, asking Steve McCarty if he wanted to lose his job over it!! Jim Candela mentioned the huge gas leak......are we sure it wasn't Steve McCarty himself?? How many remember demolishing the tool cabinet after Stan Meyer got let go? Skateboarding on the assembly floor? Beadblasting my car parts in the beadblaster and later hearing someone complaing about grease in there.......oooops. Seems a wonder we stayed open as long as we did!!

Kenny Ebersole

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I vividly recall my first day as Final Test Supervisor (1983) when at about 7:30 PM while doing time cards, there was a major gas leak in the manufacturing area. You see, Steve McCarty was doing some gas box work when a 7X gas bottle full of ASF5 suddenly released itself in his face. The whole manufacturing area was a white cloud of HF vapor. Steve, and a few others stumbled towards the door with me following. I detoured to plug in the exhaust fan, but it seems someone stole the power plug from it! Once outside we were all coughing and spitting up junk, and then rinsing our faces off with water from a hose hanging out of the engineering lab window. Then we realized the machinists were still in the shop working away…....Oh, remember the bead blast room?

Jim Candela

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 Young, dumb, 20, fresh out of the navy.  Answered ad for an electronic assy, for a company on Industrial Blvd.  Turned out to be just a bunch of tin shacks tacked together.  Know locations on the floor where we put trashcans to catch the leaks when it rained.
 Was not on the line long before Jim Candela dragged me to the final assy floor.  So started my downward spiral into this god-forsaken industry.  
 I did meet and work with a great bunch of guys, Dave Bell, Aaron Johnson, Roland Rivera.  Thou some of us have moved on we are in touch from time to time.

Glenn Hazleton

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