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At 99, computer pioneer looks back at early Minnesota tech Don Weidenbach blossomed as a digital computer pioneer after World War II and forged a 30-year career as an electrical engineer in the early years of Minnesota s computer tech era.
By Curt Brown, Special to the Star Tribune January 9, 2021 2:23pm Text size Copy shortlink:
One recent morning, 99-year-old Don Weidenbach tinkered with a balky humidifier on a workbench in the basement of his senior condo building in Edina. He s volunteered to repair busted lamps and small appliances since he and his wife of 68 years, Charleen, moved there in 2010. My dad was no good at fixing things, so I started early tightening loose doorknobs and fixing toilets as a kid, he said during a break for lunch.
St. Paul-based Engineering Research Associates helped create the modern computer industry after WWII. It preceded an explosion of innovative companies in Minnesota. Their impact around the world provided our solid economic foundation after World War II.
Much of the work done here was highly classified during the Cold War, so no one knew about it. Today, most Minnesotans look to Silicon Valley as the only home of innovation and are blissfully ignorant that the Bay Area was merely building basic components when our state was the epicenter of high tech.
Local organizations want to correct this perception. The Lawshe Memorial Museum (part of the Dakota County Historical Society) and the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota are repositories of the history of computer technology in Minnesota. Recently, the Minnesota High Tech Association, in alliance with Twin Cities Public Television, released a one-hour documentary that chronicles the history of Minnesota’s comput