Norm Winningstad

Norm Winningstad
Winningstad in 2008
Born	(1925-11-05)November 5, 1925 Berkeley, California, U.S.
Died	November 24, 2010(2010-11-24) (aged 85) Newport, Oregon, U.S.
Cause of death	Suicide by gunshot
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley Portland State University
Occupation	Entrepreneur, engineer
Children	3

C. Norman (Norm) Winningstad (November 5, 1925 – November 24, 2010) was an American engineer and businessman in the state of Oregon. A native of California, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II before working at what is now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. After moving north to Oregon, he started working for Tektronix before starting several companies in what became the Silicon Forest in the Portland metropolitan area. He founded or helped to found Floating Point Systems, Lattice Semiconductor, and Thrustmaster. Winningstad and his wife were also noted philanthropists in the Portland area, with a theater at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts named in his wife Dolores’ honor.

C. Norman Winningstad was born in Berkeley, California, to Chester and Phyllis Winningstad on November 5, 1925. He grew up in California and then served in the United States Navy during World War II as an electronic technician's mate. After the war Winningstad continued in the electronics field when graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in electrical engineering.

He graduated in 1948 as an expert in vacuum tubes, which was the same year Bell Labs developed the transistor. As the transistor would replace vacuum tubes in most applications, Winningstad later joked that he “graduated technically obsolete”. He then worked at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in his hometown for a few years. He was married to Dolores, and they had two sons, Richard and Dennis, along with a daughter Joanne.