Pete had several jobs while in college. When he was attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, he worked for Sahm TV. This was a small TV shop that was located in the basement of the owner’s house, Don Sahm. Don was a very quiet, but very smart, fellow.  Pete worked on weekends during the summer and winter by helping carry the tube caddy (yes, there were very few transistors at this time) and do repairs on TV sets, radios, intercoms, and 11 meter radios.

Don’s wife would feed Pete and Don lunch, since there were not many places to eat in Lafayette, the location of their house.

Don Sahm working on an 11 meter antenna behind his house, note the modern  service vehicle parked in the driveway and the required pocket protector.

After Pete left CU, he had to find a job with more hours.  He was very lucky to be able to rent a room in Boulder in  Everett and Elnora Houghton’s house. Elnora was a super cook and Pete and Everett enjoyed doing electronic and mechanical projects together.    The next job was at a Chevron station making $1.25 an hour. Pete felt lucky to get this job since one of his friends, George Ahlborn, was making 60 cents an hour washing dishes in a restaurant (George had a degree in Chemical Engineering!). 

Joe Sayovitz came out to Boulder during this period, he quit Cal-Poly and shared Pete’s room in the Houghton household.  Joe always had some project going including running small engines off Propane. Between Everett and Joe, anything mechanical could be repaired.  Joe found a job working for an electrician.

Through a next door neighbor of the Houghton’s, Mike, he obtained a job in Denver at DARCO.  DARCO stood for “Dictating and Recording Company’ the wages were a lot better and his electronic construction and repair abilities were better put to use.  This involved commuting to and from Denver on a daily basis on the Denver to Boulder Turnpike (a toll road). This was an interesting job because it exposed Pete to some sophisticated recording equipment manufacturers (for this time). One was a company called Uher, a German manufacturer of tape recorders both portable and non-portable

After returning to Santa Barbara, Pete worked for City TV, owned by his friend, Bill Rett. After Pete’s friend, Don Redmond, that had come out to California with Pete went back to Colorado to join the Navy, rented a room from Bill and his wife, Linda in the Samarkand part of Santa Barbara.  Pete then transferred to Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, majoring in Electronic Engineering.

After being drafted (see the Army page for some of his Viet Nam experiences) and serving 22 months of the two year draft, he returned to Cal-Poly to major in Industrial Technology.  During this time he worked part time (mostly weekends) for Chandler (Chan) Hilton, that owned and operated TSER “Theatrical Stage Equipment Rental” based at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara.  Chan was introduced to Pete by his longtime friend, Bob Kuhn.

TSER allowed Pete many opportunities, running “Super Trooper” ARC spotlights, setting up and mixing sound for such groups as “Three Dog Night” (at the Earl Warren dome, a real acoustic disaster), Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, Pat Paulson, Bill Cosby at the Santa Barbara Bowl (he sent his own microphone ahead for the show). Pete’s training in stage operations at San Marcos High School helped greatly with this job, thanks to John Duerr, the super teacher.

TSER rented sound and lighting to many different venues, schools (UCSB, Westmont college, Ventura College, etc.) Pete played delivery, setup, repair, and sometimes operation to shows like Chuck Berry, Carlos Santana, and others.

Pete scheduled his Cal-Poly classes in his senior year so that he had only to be in San Luis Obispo three days a week.  The other four he spent in Santa Barbara with expanded duties helping Chan with electrical wiring on new and repair projects., as well as the stage duties.

 Helping Chan and Henry Fonda  figure out how a fancy (for those days) wireless microphone, a Vega, worked for Fonda’s one man show was a great memory.   

Another time, Pete was a “standby projectionist” for one of the Don Miller surfing movies at the Lobero (a union projectionist was required and Pete was it - even though he knew nothing of the projector and was not  a member of the union!)

Katie was able to join Pete on many of the stage productions and helped too!