Ken Olsen Photo Archive

Ken Olsen, an unidentified manager and Andy Knowles in consultation. Knowles, an RCA veteran, led the creation of the PDP-11.The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by DEC from 1970 into the 1990s.

Unidentified DEC workers power wiring and assembling computer cabinets in the computer systems area in the DEC Galway facility in Galway, Ireland. (Circa early 70s)

Workers for the new DEC Puerto Rico plant are interviewed beside a large mockup of a PDP-8 control panel. Puerto Rico was given a pioneering role in developing environmental controls to clean up manufacturing processes. 

June 17, 2006, Gordon College broke ground for its Ken Olsen Science Center, the College's most ambitious building endeavor to date. Former Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) employees, friends and the Gordon community gathered to pay tribute to Ken Olsen, a longtime supporter of the College who joined its Board of Trustees in 1961. He is pictured, right, shaking hands with Gordon President R. Judson Carlberg. 

Ken Olsen greets Daniel Tymann, Executive Vice President of Gordon College, following a tribute service in the A.J. Gordon Memorial Chapel. The pews were filled with former DEC employees, technology and business leaders, and computer innovators. "Gordon College is deeply grateful Ken Olsen has allowed up to have this day of festivities in  his honor, said President Carlberg. "Ken has deliberately avoided the spotlight and recognition for his contributions to others. I firmly believe [this] is the reason there has been no end to what he has accomplished and continues to accomplish through projects such as the Ken Olsen Science Center."    

Olsen says of his own leadership style that his great delight was to "encourage others, lead others, help others, facilitate others in order that they would be the inventors, the builders, the engineers, and that they would know the fun and excitement, the thrill of building things and doing things that no one has done before. This is indeed more satisfying that doing it myself." 

A ceremonial groundbreaking for the Science Center took place following the  tribute. Among those participating were Ken Olsen, President Carlberg, Board of Trustees Chair Kurt Keilhacker and immediate past Board Chair and Trustee Peter Bennett; Payette Associates principal George Marsh; Bowdoin Construction Corporation vice president Chris Keele, and Rickard Stout, Chair of the Division of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science.  

Groundbreaking was followed by cutting of the commemorative Digital clock tower cake, a four-tier construction designed to represent the clock tower of the DEC company headquarters in Maynard. The 21-piece Compaq Big Band--originally the DEC Big Band--donated a performance for the reception, which took place on the quad.