{"id":6795,"date":"2015-05-21T20:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T03:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.digilentinc.com\/?p=6795"},"modified":"2021-06-16T16:22:58","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T23:22:58","slug":"throwback-thursday-digilents-beginnings-gene-appersons-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/throwback-thursday-digilents-beginnings-gene-appersons-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Throwback Thursday: Digilent&#8217;s Beginnings, Gene Apperson&#8217;s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Upon his retirement from Microsoft in 1998, Gene Apperson and his family relocated to Pullman, Washington. After a few years, Gene decided to go back to school as an undergraduate in mechanical engineering. A professor, Bob Richards, soon asked Gene to switch to the Master&#8217;s program, even though most of his background was in electrical engineering. He ended up taking a VLSI design class from none other than Clint Cole. While Gene ended up\u00a0asking Clint whether he would be able to do well in the class, they got to talking and decided to start a company together.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Clint Cole had already begun designing boards, and in 2000, Cole and Apperson decided to incorporate their fledgling venture. In the spring of 2001, Gene laid out his second PCB ever, which became the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/Products\/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,398,617&amp;Prod=D2\">D2<\/a>. After a couple more board designs, Gene and Clint rented a space in downtown Pullman (it&#8217;s since been converted to apartments).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7078\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/D2-block-architecture.gif\" alt=\"D2-block-architecture\" width=\"410\" height=\"371\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In 2001, a couple more people came on board with Digilent. Initially, Clint&#8217;s wife, Fiona, did the shipping and receiving. The\u00a0local manager of systems and services at WSU,\u00a0John\u00a0Yates, began doing work as a technician for Digilent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tune back in in a couple of weeks for more of Gene Apperson&#8217;s tale\u00a0of Digilent&#8217;s beginning!<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style6 like-6795 jlk' data-task='like' data-post_id='6795' data-nonce='8896bc70a6' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-6795 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style6 unlike-6795 jlk' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='6795' data-nonce='8896bc70a6' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-6795 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-6795 status align-left'>Be the 1st to vote.<\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Upon his retirement from Microsoft in 1998, Gene Apperson and his family relocated to Pullman, Washington. After a few years, Gene decided to go back to school as an undergraduate in mechanical engineering. A professor, Bob Richards, soon asked Gene to switch to the Master&#8217;s program, even though most of his background was in electrical engineering. He ended up taking a VLSI design class from none other than Clint Cole. While Gene ended up asking Clint whether he would be able to do well in the class, they got to talking and decided to start a company together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1553],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[4464],"class_list":["post-6795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-digilent"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/D2.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":4464,"user_id":7,"is_guest":0,"slug":"amber_mear","display_name":"Amber Mear","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d0fc56ab4035f79884675bde2a948e84c1d14dd33b730b4c142dde6f1a962395?s=96&d=mm&r=g","1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":"","9":"","10":""}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6795"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}