These hours do not count the extra study hours required of about 2 hours for every 8 hours of classroom time adding another 1000 hours.
The modern NCR Technical Education Center located in Centerville, Ohio near the Dayton Mall. Centerville is a southern suburb of Dayton, Ohio. At the time it was way out in the undeveloped farm area of Centerville but today the area is very developed and all the fields around the Center are filled with homes. Note the very small single window slot in each classroom!
The Center was built in the days when NCR required mandatory white shirts, ties, suits and short haircuts. The Center Director greeted each student on the first day of class in the front office area. He was mostly checking to make sure you were in uniform! I recall some students being sent home for non-compliance. Looking back on the experience it is hard to believe that companies were so regimented but they were. Later on the dress code at the Center was relaxed and it was a much better experience.
It was a fantastic improvement compared to the old NCR factory building classrooms. I had an opportunity to visit the center a few years ago and was surprised to see that it was still there!
The Technical Education Center had an attached hotel complex for the students. The rooms were small cubicles with a fold out bed and a built in desk at the window. Two rooms shared a common toilet and shower and each hotel wing had a common area with a TV. As I recall the Center charged about $15 a week for a room. Travel expense was paid to and from the Center and you received a fixed amount of money each week to pay for the hotel and for food. There was a large cafeteria located between the Education Center and the Hotel. It was home-away-from-home for many months, but it was clean, and the food was pretty good. If you were lucky you could get on the list to rent a small refrigerator to keep your beer cool.
Most of us from the west traveled by air and were dependent on the Center shuttle bus that would let you escape to the Dayton Mail. What I didn't realize at the time is that the Rike's Department store in the Dayton Mall would be on my Federated Stores voice and POS data network in fifteen years. Funny how you never know what the future holds. Another thing to do was to spend the day at the fabulous Air Force Museum. I logged a lot of hours at that Museum. For a few years some of the instructors rented bicycles to the students that allowed us some freedom to ride the back roads around the Center.
The Center had a large paved parking lot that made a great runway to fly radio controlled aircraft.
Killing time on the weekends was the hardest part when you were away from your family for many weeks. NCR would pay for a trip home every four weeks but for the students from the west coast it was not possible to make it home for a weekend. Some of the guys found all the free time on the weekends and being away from the family so many months hard to handle. The many months away really tested the family relationships and a few failed resulting in divorce.
The last time I attended the Center in 1978 I was a NCR customer in a T8270 class. What a change! I had a rental car, nice hotel over by the Dayton Mall and a expense account.
A satellite view of the Technical Education Center as it looks today. From the top to bottom; Four classroom buildings and the smaller front office building, then the one large cafeteria building and seven hotel wings. The large parking lot is to the left of the class rooms. The hotel wing on the top right was used for international students. Over the years I had a room in every US wing .
