WENHAM — The microwave oven may be the only technological advancement in cooking since the invention of the electric refrigerator.
Stoves and ranges? Modern variants of the caveman's fire pit. Electric mixers? Motorized versions of the stick early man used to stir the pot.
But what the microwave did for popcorn and dinner-in-a-tray is what the assembly line did for manufacturing — it changed everything.
Gordon College was recently given the archives of longtime trustee Tom Phillips, the former Raytheon CEO and president who spent 42 years with the company, where microwave technology was developed in the late 1940s.
Along with an original countertop Amana microwave oven, the collection includes photographs of Phillips with U.S. presidents and a model of the Hawk missile developed by the company. The Hawk was the first "guided missile" that could hit a moving target.
At a recent college tribute to Phillips, current Raytheon CEO William Swanson also announced the establishment of the $100,000 Phillips/Raytheon Scholarship endowment for women and students of color at Gordon who are pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The scholarship reflects Phillips' personal devotion to education.
"He spent a lot of his career training other leaders," said Daniel Tymann, executive vice president for advancement, communications and technology at Gordon.
While the microwave oven may be Raytheon's most familiar contribution to consumer electronics, Tymann said Phillips was most proud of overseeing development of the Hawk, which evolved into the Patriot missiles that famously wiped out incoming Scud missiles during the first Iraq war.
A photo in the college's collection shows President John F. Kennedy inspecting Hawk missiles during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the Soviet Union and the United States came as close to turning up the heat on the Cold War as they would ever get.
Serendipity
Percy Spencer was the self-taught Raytheon engineer who first discovered a new way to cook food in 1946. Spencer, who hadn't even graduated from high school, was testing a new type of vacuum tube called a magnetron when he noticed it melted the candy bar in his pocket, Tymann said.
It was a light-bulb moment, and the intrigued Spencer placed some popcorn kernels next to the tube and was delighted when they popped.
Phillips had purchased Amana by then, and in 1957 it marketed the first countertop microwave oven for home use. If you are familiar with the name, Radar Range, you date yourself.
The archives portray Phillips with four successive U.S. presidents, from Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush. There is also a testimonial from Charles Colson, the "evil genius" special counsel to Nixon who spent seven months in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Colson credits Phillips with turning his life around.
As the head of Raytheon, Phillips also had a hand in America's early trips to the moon. When Neil Armstrong took his celebrated "giant leap for mankind" in 1969, millions of viewers around the world could thank Raytheon for the equipment that beamed the live television signals back to Earth.
The company also developed the guidance systems that brought Apollo 11 to the moon.
David Lee, head of Gordon's Physics Department, thinks tales like that represent the value of the college's newest collection.
"It's the stories that can be shared," Lee said. "As human beings, we like stories, and I would argue we also like technology."
The Phillips collection has been on display in the lobby of the school's new Ken Olsen Science Center since May 31. Eventually, it will be housed in the Raytheon/Tom Phillips wing of the building, overlooking the Phillips Music Center largely paid for by Phillips and his wife.
Tymann said Phillips has been an influential trustee of the college for more than 40 years, and it was at his urging the school and the Gordon-Conwell Seminary should not share a campus.
While nearly all of the collection centers around Phillips' contributions to science, there are also ample examples of his faith, and Tymann finds that fitting.
"At a place like Gordon, faith and science go hand in hand."
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