page_title: Norman Krim
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Norman Krim / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Norman Krim Success at Raytheon in the 1940's brought the Proximity Fuse for wartime and the Portable Hearing Aid in Peacetime.
context_page_description: Norman B. Krim was an American electronics engineer and engineering executive. His drive to create a transistor product for the electronic experimenter-hobbyist market contributed to paving the path for a generation of American electronic engineers and technicians during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
  The result was that a whole generation of aspiring engineers — kids, really, working in their garages and basements — got to make all kinds of electronic projects. A lot of them went on to become engineers.—Harry Goldstein, editor for IEEE Spectrum magazine.
context_section_description: Norm Krim was born June 3, 1913 Manhattan, New York, one of four children of parents Abraham and Ida Krim. He graduated from George Washington High School at age 16 then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he graduated 1934 in electrical engineering.  He worked for most of his career for Raytheon, (over 75 years).
  He began as an engineer at Raytheon when he was hired in 1933 during his junior year at MIT for 50 cents an hour. His first success was in the development of subminiature tubes, in the Special Tubes group. While working in the special tube division, before the outbreak of WW2, he wanted to use subminiature tubes in consumer products (hearing aids and radios). After Raytheon's success in subminiature tubes for wartime applications such as the proximity fuze, Raytheon became the leader in the design and production of subminiature tubes.  Raytheon promoted Krim to be head of the Special Tube Division. The proximity fuze was a small radar-like device attached to on a bomb or artillery shell that would detonate the bomb or shell before impact, causing a greater destruction.  Just as importantly, the fuze initiated detonation *without* needing to impact the target directly, or to rely on an altitude setting in the fuze that would detonate the shell at an estimated target height, and close enough that the shrapnel cloud would impact the target. Given the extremes of aircraft target range and speed, and of shell accuracy of the day, the proximity fuze dramatically increased the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire. After World War Two ended, Norman Krim got the go ahead from Laurence Marshall head of Raytheon, to build the first pocket portable tube radio using and adapting subminiature tubes for commercial products. The radio was called the Belmont Boulevard designed by Niles Gowell (Raytheon had acquired Belmont Radio Corp for this purpose).
caption: Raytheon Subminiature Tube (CK5676 shown)- Made the proximity fuze possible in wartime and the portable hearing aid possible in peacetime
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