posted 08-12-2010 07:40 AM               

In its heyday, Autonetics was Anaheim's largest employer. A place where some 36,000 workers helped develop aerospace technologies that guided U.S. submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles - advancements that some credit with helping end the Cold War.

The 188-acre Autonetics campus, just north of the 91 freeway near Tustin Avenue, is now owned by Boeing and is a shadow of what it was in the 1960s through '90s, with about 5,000 employees split between Anaheim and Huntington Beach.

On Tuesday, hundreds of onetime Autonetics employees came back - not to work, but to remember.

And to make sure others don't forget.

They came to celebrate the unveiling of a monument to the accomplishments of Autonetics and the contributions the company made to the Anaheim community and to the nation.

Boeing officials dedicated 14,000 square feet along the 3300 block of La Palma Avenue for the monument, which stretches 72 feet long and rises from 3 feet on one end up to 14 feet on the other.

Along the monument's wall are eight large, stainless-steel panels that include highlights of the company's history and contributions to electronics and navigation systems.

In 1946, the laboratory won an Army Air Force contract to develop a 175- to-500-mile-range glide missile. The work and the lab expanded, so that by June 1948, all of the Aerophysics Laboratory was consolidated at Downey, Calif. The evolution of the Navaho missile program then resulted in the establishment of Autonetics as a separate division of North American Aviation in 1955, first located in Anaheim, Calif.

Autonetics included the Navigation Systems division, designing and producing inertial and stellar-inertial navigation systems for ships, submarines, missiles, aircraft and space vehicles. Other products included alignment devices and attitude reference systems for missile launchers, artillery, orientation, land survey, aircraft and missile-range ships.