Previous
Historical Electronics Museum (Visit this link)
Besides our wide variety of displays, we also have a complete amateur radio
station, W3HEM/W3GR, fully equipped with vintage and modern communications
systems.
Our mission is to educate, inspire, and excite the interest of students and the
general public. We carry it out by presenting to them our electronics heritage
through the collection, preservation, and display of significant artifacts and
literature and the commemoration of the creativity and dedication of pioneers
and all workers in the field of electronics. We focus on electronics developed
for the defense of our country, the technologies that made them possible, and
the commercial products derived from them.
The Historical Electronics Museum grew out of a Westinghouse Family Day in 1973.
Robert Dwight, an employee of the Westinghouse Defense and Electronics Systems
Center in Baltimore, Maryland and a key planner of Family Day, saw the event as
an opportunity to display employee products that their families had previously
not had the opportunity to see. Titled “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, three
airborne radars, the AERO-13/AN/APQ-50, the AN/APQ-120 and the WX-200
respectively, were set out as examples of each era. Throughout the day, Mr.
Dwight made the same observation: employees and their families were excited and
proud to see the finished products of their work.
This excitement was shared by Mr. Dwight. He decided to purse actively more
radars and other electronic equipment to display to fellow colleagues. Enlisting
the help of Jack Sun, a Westinghouse employee, formerly with the United States
Air Force, Mr. Dwight wanted to acquire the radar from a BOMARC missile from the
Department of Defense (DOD). This missile carried the AN/DPN-53, the first
airborne pulse-doppler radar. The two men quickly ran into a dead end. According
to the DOD, they could not obtain the BOMARC radar unless they were a legally
qualified non-profit museum.
Both Mr. Dwight and Mr. Sun approached senior Westinghouse lawyer Butch Gregory
for advice and aid in drawing up the papers necessary to create a legitimate
museum. It was a long period before it was realized. Finally, in 1980 the
Historical Electronics Museum was incorporated in the State of Maryland as a
non-profit museum.
Westinghouse provided much needed support in the form of financial aid and
storage facilities. In 1983, a 2,000 square foot space was dedicated to the
museum at Airport Square III, near the present location. In 1986, this space was
expanded to approximately 4,000 square feet. Previously operated with a
volunteer staff, the museum hired its first professional staff member in 1989.
In 1992 the museum relocated to its current location at Friendship Square.
Corporate support was continued by the Northrop Grumman - Electronic Systems
after it purchased Westinghouse Defense and Electronics Systems Center in 1996.
Plans for expanding within the current location were developed in 1998 and in
1999 the museum was closed for months while under construction. In September
1999, the doors were opened again to reveal a doubling in size to 22,000 of
indoor space, including a new events and meeting space, a new exhibition
gallery, a climate controlled storage area, an exhibition laboratory, a
conference room and a half an acre of outdoor exhibit space.
The museum continues to grow with the addition of new permanent outdoors
exhibits and improved landscaping. Indoor gallery spaces are being redesigned
and updated. Educational programming such as the Young Engineers and Scientists
Seminars (YESS) and the Robot Festival are offered on a yearly basis with more
to come. And the museum has established the Robert L. Dwight Science Scholarship
awarded to outstanding engineering for the University of Maryland and University
of Maryland – Baltimore County. Finally the Museum benefits greatly for the
support of grants and donations from various agencies and engineering societies.
Members of the Board of Directors include individuals from institutions such as
Westinghouse Defense and Electronics Systems Center, Northrop Grumman -
Electronic Systems, Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Carnegie Institute,
American Association of Museums, the University of Maryland – Baltimore County,
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Allied Signal, and Hertzbach & Company. The
staff has grown to two full time museum professionals and a part-time museum
administrator. The volunteer corps consists of over thirty people who donate
regularly over 5,000 hours a year.
As the founders envisioned it, the museum is a place for visitors to be exposed
to the technological achievements and advances by the aforementioned companies
and others like them. It also allows those people who have been involved with
the objects to look back and share their accomplishments. The Historical
Electronics Museum has evolved into an institution that not only appeals to
engineers, but to students and the non-technical public as well. We offer people
the opportunity to see and experience the “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” of the
defense electronics industry.
http://www.hem-usa.org