In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Ray Larsen, head of the electronics department at SLAC, where he specialized in controls instrumentation and microwave front end interfaces to electronics. Larsen recounts his childhood in Alberta and his Norwegian heritage. He discusses his undergraduate and masters degree experience at the University of British Columbia where he developed his interests in engineering and electronics. He discusses his work at the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment in Quebec City, and the circumstances leading to his tenure at SLAC, which he recognized immediately as his ideal career setting. Larsen describes his long tenure at SLAC, which spans nearly the life of SLAC itself. Larsen explains many of the fundamental experiments that have taken place at SLAC, and he discusses the exciting, free-wheeling spirit of the early days at the lab, and how it has changed over the years.
