Education
Diplom Ingenieur, Braunschweig Technische Hochschule, Germany
Diplom Ingenieur, Braunschweig Technische Hochschule, Germany
1) Apprentice and later engineer at Renault, France
2) Engineer at Radio factory, Philips, Budapest Hungary
3) Engineer and first Director at Emission Tube Factory, Philips, Brive, Correze, France
4) Engineer and Technical Director at Philips, FAPESA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
G.M. Klein was a very disciplined , warm, occasionally stern and extremely correct human being, not devoid from a colorful sense of humor. His personality and polymath-like knowledge was shaped by his Hungarian background, his Jesuit schooling and his French and German upbringing/studies. He was especially talented in mathematics and physics and he excelled in developing new advances in vacuum technology as applied to manufacturing electron tubes. He enjoyed reading and discussing history, philosophy and literature in at least five languages.
Ir. G. Klein worked most of his life at the Dutch company Philips (now Koninklijke Philips N.V). He was hired by one of the founders, Anton Philips and Theo Tromp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Tromp) a distinguished Dutch engineer and statesman during the WWII period with whom he maintained a life-long collaboration and friendship. G. Klein took great pride in his work, especially the foundation in 1937 of the electronic industry in Brive-la-Gaillarde, Correze, France. Originally located at the Avenue Maillard, quite close to the city centre, the present factory is at the Avenue Roger Roncier in honor of M. Roncier who presided over the growth of the factory after WWII and pioneered a new industrial development center in that area. Ing. G. Klein collaborated with him as well and was especially proud of the technical team of the early years that included, among others, Andre de Saint-Andrieu, M. Cassanhiol and Eugene Brefort. He was also quite close to Emile Pouzet and his family. This enterprise set the base for a larger post-war electronics factory and became the precursor of the present Photonis Technologies in the same city (https://www.photonis.com/en/history) a manufacturer and developer of photo-sensors for detection, imaging and amplification of low light, as well as electron and ion sensors.
After WWII, G. Klein helped with other colleagues , especially Ir. B. Jurgens, develop a large factory totally dedicated to radio transmission and receiving tubes in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Philips/FAPESA), and later he also supervised the production of TV cathode ray tubes and transistors (see below).
Quotes from others about the person
One of his colleagues at Philips Argentina FAPESA wrote:
"What Ir. G. Klein did upon starting in Buenos-Aires in 1943 was a major hattrick and it still leaves me with a very high regard for his skill. He did not have any technician and therefore had to start from scratch, with only his own knowledge and experience. Just imagine that he had to teach every aspect of the manyfacturing of large transmitting tubes to unexperienced personnel: glass blowing, making glass-metal seals, assembly, degassing of the components, evacuation and sealing off, activating and aging. . He knew and was able to execute every aspect of the transmitting tube activity."
My predecessor in the radio receiving tube department (Mr. A.) had suffered a heart attack in 1954 and the receiving tube department had been under the management his successor , who although not being a bad tube maker, had a problem with the assembly girls (he was too friendly with them). In the beginning of 1955 one assistant from Holland was sent to try to assist in the receiving tube department and towards the second half of that year a second assistant and I went to Buenos-Aires. I think that during the absence of Mr. A., Ir. G. Klein supervised the receiving tube department until we came.
During that first part of my stay in Argentina Ir. G. Klein helped me a lot. We communicated in Dutch and French, since my Spanish was of course nonexistent at that time.
Ir. Klein was typically a man for a product like transmitting tubes, manufacturing of a single product, with all the typical difficulties, which might show up during processing.
I remember that we used to have quite some difficulties with one special water cooled transmitting tube, the TA12/20 and since transportation by truck of these tubes often resulted in a reject upon arrival at the customer because of the rough handling during transport, we more than once took such a big tube between our knees in a private car and drove it to the transmitter where we were only allowed to install the tube after midnight, when the normal transmitting hours were over. I remember these nightly trips as if they occurred yesterday.
In 1957 we started on a very small scale to manufacture a few picture tubes. Already in 1954 it was decided to start with this production and a new Argentine assistant had been employed and sent to Eindhoven to learn the process.. However after returning to Buenos-Aires in 1955 he was more or less idle and he did not want to wait until Philips finally was going to start the production, so he left already in 1956 and never made any tubes. (Around this time Ir. Klein spent several months in Eindhoven catching up with the new technology and also contributing to new vacuum technology for the electron microscope).
It was also decided in 1957 that we would move the whole activity to a new site in La Tablada. Construction of a large factory (one bay of 90x30 m for receiving- and transmitting tubes and a bay of 90x40 m with a cellar for picture tubes and a store building of some 40x100 m was started. A new building for picture tubes was finally constructed and we moved into full scale production by 1961. We then however experienced tremendous problems. Our process yield in this new building was practically zero. Finally the reason was found and the problem appeared to be due to a chemical which we purchased locally and which had a contamination which we had not (and could not have ) discovered. In the mean time everybody was desperate. Ir. G.M. Klein supervised the picture tube activity and had as a second in command one of the two assistents which had arrived together with me.
I think the above is more or less an account of my memories of Ir. G. Klein, who was in a few words an excellent tube maker (one of the old kind who really knew all the ins and outs of the job), a very modest man and a very good friend.