HP Legend Chuck House on HP History

I have written here before about Chuck House, who is a legend in HP history for, among other things, being awarded a medal for "Exceptional Contempt and Defiance Beyond the Usual Call of Engineering Duty" by David Packard.  I just got an email from Chuck about an event that he is putting on with fellow HP veterans.  I wish I could make it; these guys lived through one of the most amazing periods at what was then -- at least arguably -- the best company in U.S. history. I say that, because under Bill and Dave, I believe that no company before or since has done such an impressive job of balancing the trio of making money, treating employees well, and being a great corporate citizen over such a long stretch of time. HP wasn't perfect, but they were as close to it as any human organization I know.

Here is what Chuck wrote. I just checked out their blog --- it looks fascinating:

You all know that I have been working for some time with Ray Price on an interpretive history of Hewlett-Packard.  Our working title at the moment is the HP Phenomenon, scheduled for publication with Stanford University Press in February 2009.

Next Wednesday evening, April 9^th at 7:00pm, in the Los Altos High School Eagle Theatre, there will be a panel discussion of some of the early Hewlett-Packard days with Dave Packard’s leadership as the main topic.  Panelists will include Al Bagley, Cort Van Rensselaer, Art Fong, Jack Petrak, and Dave Kirby.  I will emcee the event.  I think it will be great fun, especially with a number of HP folk in the audience who have promised to heckle and cajole the panel.

Tickets are a modest $10 each, see http://www.losaltoshistory.org/packard.htm

I also have constructed a BLOG of sorts, to complement both some of the topics in the book and for the evening.  This is “front-end loaded” with about 12 small items, found at http://hpphenom.blogspot.com/

Your comments and editorial statements for the Blog will be most appreciated.

Hope to see you Wednesday nite!

Best, Chuck House

Comments

[Jonathan Kamens]

I wish I had warm fuzzies about HP, but right now I'm locked in a pitched battle to get them to give me my money back for an HP printer which I bought directly from them and which hasn't worked since the day I bought it. The case manager working with me has been consistently civil and polite while at the same time being completely unhelpful.

Bob, do you have any contacts at HP who can make this problem go away?

You can read the whole story at http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/tag/c5280/.