Meet Greg Brown - The new Webmaster for Ed-Thelen.org

I started corresponding with Ed Thelen on email, around 2000. I had just moved to the San Francisco Bay area and began volunteering at the NPS Historic Nike Missile Museum at the Marin Headlands in 2006.
In 2011, I moved to the city of Fremont, only 3 blocks from Ed. We carpooled together to the NPS SF-88 Historic Nike Missile Museum from 2011, until the latter part of 2023.

The hour commutes between our home and the Marin Headlands passed quickly as we had much to talk about. Nike experiences and a love for electronics and computers, and family. Ed was from the Ajax era and I was from the Hercules time.

I told him I would like to learn the coding used in web design, HTML. He gave me some tutoring on the basics and how to construct a simple page.
That was as far as I got, so bear with me, I am trying to improve my HTML coding game. Practice makes perfect.

Where do we go from here?
Do not argue with success.

I will keep the site pretty much the way it has always been. With updates from my Nike Veterans and others. And articles of the Air Defense news.

Being an NPS SF-88 Historic Nike Missile Museum volunteer and site maintenance worker, I have access to a bunch of Nike missile parts and radar van components.

We have many of the Army TM manuals for the equipment which helps greatly.

I plan to take pictures of Nike components and post them on the website.
They will bring back memories on our Nike experiences.
Any upcoming events or pictures or experiences you would like to share, please forward them to me at ed@Ed-Thelen.org

This site is for all Nike Veterans, who served in the US, Korea, Alaska, Germany, and our NATO allies who kept Nikes alive until 2011.

Along with Hawk and other Anti-aircraft systems from the Fort Bliss training center and Western Electric Nike Contractors.

What was my Nike experiences ? Enlisted man, joining at age 17. I was trained as a 16C at Abernathy Radar Park, Fort Bliss in the summer of 68.

Then went to Los Angeles area Defense, C-4-65 (LA-88) in Chatsworth. Around my second year I became a generator operator 52B because we were short on them.
I worked in the IFC area. Later on, I transferred to the Launching Area.

Not many Nike personnel get to work in both IFC and Launcher areas. I was on the SF-88 SNAP Crew on July 71.

Then I got orders for Fort Bliss to be in a mobile unit with the 6th Artillery group B-4-62. That was good duty but before you know it, it was time to go home.

After my release from service, I went to College on the GI Bill, not sure which way to go at that time. I always liked to tinker with radios and electronics.

Nicknames are given, not made up. I was given the name Be Bop Brown because of my Be Bop moves by Sp. 5 Richardson in the IFC area at LA-88. The name stuck.

Feel free to contact me at Ed@Ed-Thelen.org

This is and will always be.....Ed's website !

Keeping alive, the story of our Nation's first generation missile defense system.

Greg Brown



MacGregor Range Short Notice Annual Practice, LA-88, July 1971

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