EE Celebrates 45th Anniversary

It’s now been 45 years since the first issue of EE-Evaluation Engineering rolled off the press. At that time, among the buzz words for the industry were reliability, evaluation, standards, materials, and components. Some of the words may have changed in the last four decades, but the magazine’s charter to address the needs of engineering managers and engineers has not.

EE’s first issue was mailed to 10,000 engineers, or at least that was the intent. Due to a mailing-house error, one reader received some additional copies—30 to be exact. Fortunately, that was the only major mailing problem we encountered as EE grew from the original six issues a year to 12 a few years later.

While the philosophy and distinctive logo of the magazine haven’t changed much over the years, our description on the front cover has, reflecting our evolving focus on the industry. For example, near the beginning, EE was officially called the Magazine of Reliability Engineering. Then it was the Electronic Magazine of Reliability Engineering followed by the Magazine of Electronic Evaluation. Today, it’s the Magazine of Electronic Evaluation and Test.

EE has developed some long-running features such as the Test Labs Guide and the ATE Directory, both still among the nine buyers guides that we publish annually. Then there was the “Burn-In Update,” “EE Vibrations” authored for many years by Wayne Tustin, and the “Dealing With EMC” series. All of these features appeared regularly for many, many years.

One very popular series was “Coping With Static Electricity,” which started in 1977. The late Dan Anderson, then with the Richmond Division of Dixico, convinced EE that this was a critical problem in the electronics industry while attending a Nepcon West Show in Anaheim. We then went on to help launch the annual EOS/ESD Symposium with the first annual meeting in Denver and later established a program for supplying ESD training films/tapes to our readers. The training program was welcomed and assisted by major corporations including McDonnell-Douglas and Northrop and government agencies.

EE’s involvement has always reached beyond just the printed book and into growing trends in the industry. In the mid-1960s, EE launched the Reliability Engineering Clearing Center Program that later became the Reliability Analysis Center at Griffiss Air Force Base. In 1993 and 1994, we conducted VXIbus Seminars in conjunction with National Instruments, Racal Dana, Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, and Wavetek. And, most recently was the introduction of LXI ConneXion, a new quarterly publication that focuses on LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation.

It may seem like it was only yesterday for some of us, but EE made its appearance on the Internet more than 10 years ago. And, during this last decade, we have tried to marry the best of print with electronic media.

One example is the RSLeads program. It provides an online system that can speed information transfers via the web, allowing readers to go nonstop to a specific product page within a manufacturer’s website after reading about a new product in EE. And in January, we introduced EE Digital, an electronic version of EE that readers can receive each month by e-mail rather than waiting for the mailman to deliver the printed version.

But we’re not stopping here. Look for us to initiate some new and exciting tools, both in print and online, as we continue the original goal set by Vern Nelson, the publisher of EE since its inception: to be the best source of technical information for the electronics evaluation and test industry.

History of Nelson Publishing

Nelson Publishing began operations in downtown Chicago in 1961 and moved to Highland Park, IL, in 1968. The company relocated in Sarasota County, FL, in 1983 and is headquartered in Nokomis located on the Gulf Coast.

EE-Evaluation Engineering was the first magazine published by Nelson Publishing, but it’s not the only one in the stable. Today, the company publishes nine trade magazines with accompanying websites for professionals in the fields of technology, healthcare, and manufacturing:

Modern Applications News for the metalworking job shops came to Nelson Publishing in 1968. MAN, originally known as Materials Applications News for Design and Manufacturing, was acquired from the American Society of Metals and is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year.
Communications News covers the networking, data, voice, video, and image communications field. Started in 1964, CommNews was the first publication to exclusively serve the communications market.
Health Management Technology reports on news, trends, and products for C-level executives, IT directors, and clinical managers in hospitals, clinics, and payor organizations. HMT began in 1980.
Medical Laboratory Observer is entering its 38^th year as a publication delivering CE courses, peer-reviewed articles, and new product reviews to pathologists and management personnel in the medical laboratory field.
Clinical Laboratory Reference, MLO’s annual resource guide, lists products, tests, and services plus up-to-date information in areas such as therapeutic drug levels and table of critical limits.
Tooling & Production, the granddaddy of the Nelson books, has been published since 1934. T&P delivers technology, products, and processes applying to aerospace, automotive, medical equipment, mold, and tool and die manufacturing for metalworking professionals working in large, high-throughput plants.
DesignFax Online is Nelson’s first exclusive e-magazine. It debuted 18 months ago following 25 years in print. This weekly resource designed for OEM manufacturers focuses on mechanical, motion control, electrical/electronic, new materials, fluid power, CAD/CAE/CAM, and other relevant topics such as environmental design, prototyping, mechatronics, and systems development.
LXI ConneXion is the newest publication and delivered to 25,000 EE readers. This quarterly magazine began in late 2005 to address the technology of LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation.