Bell Northern Labs
From the The Peninsula Times Tribune, October 16, 1973:
Northern Telecom, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian telecommunications manufacturer, announced plans Monday for a new plant in Mountain View.
It will involve an investment of $2 million in improvements and equipment, according to Quentin R. Ball, executive vice president.
The company will occupy a 40,000. square-foot plant at 500 E. Middlefield Road. It expects to employ 200 persons.
Hiring will take place before the end of this year, with manufacturing to begin in January, 1974. Even top management for the plant is expected to be recruited from the Midpeninsula by the Boston-based firm.
The Mountain View plant will produce the company’s “PULSE” electronic business telephone exchange systems.
The plant is the third the company has initiated in the U.S. this year. It brings the total amount of new manufacturing space it has under construc. tion or modification to 150,000 square feet.
The building, a former Lockheed-occupied building, is to be modified extensively for the new operation.
Northern Telecom is the U.S. subsidiary of Northern Electric Co. Ltd., of Canada, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of telecommunications products.
Northern Telecom markets a complete line of telephone and telecom. munications equipment, from telephone stations and central office switching systems to microwave relay stations and communications satellite transponders. Conventional desk-top telephone sets are also in the line of products.
The PABX system to be manufactured in Mountain View replaces the conventional large switchboard with a desktop unit that is completely electronic. The equipment backing it up, with its solid state electronics, could fit in a box three by three feet. EugeneJ. Doody of Northern Telecom contrasted this with older electromechanical systems that might fill an eight-by 10-foot room.
Although the company makes its own components at some locations, it will purchase subassemblies outside the company for the Mountain View plant, at least initially.
One reason the company is recruiting at the management level in the Midpeninsula, Doody said, is that Northern Telecom is opening three U.S. plants this year, and has need of more managers.
The Mountain View plant gives the firm coast-to-coast manufacturing operations. The other two plants are in North Carolina and Michigan.
Port Huron:
Originally opened in leased space at 2407 16th Street, Port Huron, then moved to its own purpose built space at 2654 20th Street, Port Huron
Production Started: February 28, 1972 Officially Opened: April 27, 1972 Closure announced June 4, 1976 Closed: July 30, 1976
The Times Herald Port Huron, Michigan ยท Saturday, June 05, 1976
My notes tell me that all operations were transferred to nashville
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