“Gordon L. Peterson AT3, VP 21
1953-56 3/23/03

On July 18, 1933, I was born in Mason City, Iowa, an only child, to Lewis and Lillian (Ramus) Peterson. I spent my initial 18 years there and joined the Navy on February 19th, 1952, as an airman. I was sent to San Diego for basic training, then to prep school at Norman, Oklahoma and on to electronics school at Millington, Tennessee. After graduating
from electronics school I traveled to Pax River, Maryland to join VP-21. I spent the majority of my tour with VP 21 on flight crew and primarily on Commander Walker’s crew.

During our search and rescue and anti-sub warfare training in the Mediterranean, we twice had engine failures and were forced down. Once was in Nicosia, Cyprus where we had to remove an engine and replace it before returning to Malta. The other occasion was when we were on our way from Malta to search for a downed plane off Sicily and we lost an engine. During the return to Malta, we kept losing altitude, but fortunately the updraft gave us enough lift to clear the cliffs and land, although we did veer off the side of the runway. We celebrated our safe return with a bottle of Scotch.

I left the Navy on January 12, 1956 to return to school and I graduated from University of Iowa in 1960 with a BSEE and BA degrees. Shortly after graduation I married my first wife and later had a son, Eric, in 1961, and a daughter, Cassie, in 1963. I spent the next 30 years working in the semiconductor industry, first for Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona
(1960-70), and then in California’s “”Silicon Valley”” for Fairchild in Mountain View (1970-76). From there I joined Monolithic Memories (1976-88) and finally to LSI Logic (1988-90). These companies are also located in the Bay Area just south of San Francisco. Positions included Vice President & General Manager of Military Products Division for
MMI and Vice President of Marketing at LSI, from whence I retired in 1990.

After a difficult divorce in 1972/73, I later met and married Veronica (Ronnie), also a semiconductor industry employee, in 1976. We have five children between us and they have provided us with nine lovely grandchildren. Ronnie and I split our time between our homes in Cool, California in the Sierra Nevada foothills (the “”gold country””) and the coastal town of Florence, Oregon. Since our retirements we’ve traveled extensively and continue to enjoy seeing new places and meeting new people and renewing relationships with old friends. END”