Charles Litton, Sr.

Charles Vincent Litton Sr. (1904–1972) was an engineer and inventor from the area now known as Silicon Valley.

Biography

Early life Charles Vincent Litton was born on March 13, 1904, in San Francisco, California. His mother was Alice J. Vincent and father was Charles A. Litton. As a boy he experimented with radio technology at his parents' house in Redwood City, California. and the San Francisco Bay area was one of the early centers of amateur radio activity and experimentation, containing about 10% of the total operators in the US. Litton joined fellow amateur radio operators William Eitel and Jack McCullough at their vacuum tube manufacturing company located in the Bay area to address amateur needs. There, Litton originated glass lathe techniques which made mass production of reliable high quality power tubes possible, and resulted in the award of wartime contracts to the company. Eitel and McCullough's company, Eitel-McCullough, was headquartered in San Bruno and manufactured power-grid tubes for radio amateurs and aircraft radio equipment.

He later went to work for the Federal Telegraph Company, and headed tube engineering there. Cecil Howard Green (later the founder of Texas Instruments) worked for Litton during that time. During the Great Depression, the Federal was acquired and moved its facilities to New Jersey. Litton stayed in California.

In 1932, he founded Litton Engineering Laboratories with his savings, and continued to experiment in the shop on his parents' Redwood City property. He held 65 patents on various high-tech innovations. At Frederick Terman's request, Litton helped Stanford build a tube research lab, and recruit David Packard.

During World War II, Litton participated in the design and production of microwave tubes used in communications and radar equipment, for which he was awarded the Presidential Certificate of Merit. In 1941 he formed a partnership called Industrial and Commercial Electronics with Philip Scofield and Ralph Shermund. Russell and Sigurd Varian used Litton klystron tube-making equipment in their family firm, Varian Associates. Another firm (later called Eimac) founded by fellow amateur radio operators William Eitel and Jack McCullough used Litton technology. In 1954, Electro Dynamics bought the rights to the name Litton Industries.

Death and legacy He died in November 1972 in Carson City, Nevada. His papers are in the collection of The Bancroft Library.