A Legacy of Innovation: Earl Bakken's Centennial

January 10, 2024 marks the centennial of Pavek Museum co-founder Earl Bakken's birth. Join us as we celebrate not just him, but also the culture of innovation that he and our other co-founders, Joe Pavek and Paul Hedberg, created with the Pavek Museum.  

Throughout his life, Earl demonstrated a commitment to educating and inspiring others. The Pavek Museum stands as a living testament to Earl's vision, utilizing the collections for multi-generational education. 

 In honor of the 100th anniversary of Earl Bakken’s birth and the more than 100,000 students the Pavek Museum has served since 1988, we invite you to contribute to our fundraising goal of $100,000. Your support will help the Pavek Museum advance our mission to educate people about the history, science, art, and technology of electronic communication.

Earl's Legacy of Innovation

Earl's fascination with electricity and communication technology began as a young child while tinkering with his family’s 1924 Freed-Eisemann three-dial radio receiver. It is well-known that he was captivated by the idea that electricity could animate life, as he saw at age 8 viewing the 1931 movie Frankenstein. It’s less well-known that prior to that experience, he was already captivated by the understanding that electricity could be used to communicate over long distances. 

Before Frankenstein, Earl had built a secret electric telephone system that allowed him to communicate with his neighborhood friends. His interest in electricity, electromagnetism, and electronic communication technology continued to grow. He earned a First-Class Radio Operator's license and improved his high school’s PA system for the famous Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy speech—all before he graduated high school. 

During January of 1942, immediately after graduating high school, Earl enlisted in the US Army. Because he held that radio operator’s license, he was assigned to the Army Signal Corps. Throughout World War II, he served as an electronics instructor for the operation and maintenance of advanced airborne radio communication and radar equipment. That teaching experience instilled in him a passion for technical education. 

After the War, Earl earned degrees in electrical engineering, with his specialty being in communications engineering. Did you know that while in graduate school, he was a member of a team that was the first to transmit a radio signal from the Earth to the Moon, and to receive its reflection from the Moon’s surface? What an accomplishment!  

Earl co-founded Medtronic for the purpose of providing maintenance services for electronic medical equipment. In its initial month, Medtronic earned only eight dollars. Through its first few years, as it was developing a market in medical electronics service, much of Medtronic's revenue resulted from Earl repairing household radio and TV sets. 

Earl’s innovative energy resulted in the development of several early Medtronic products—among them the wearable pacemaker, which set Medtronic on the path to become a large, global enterprise. Even with the on-going success of Medtronic, Earl continued his keen interest in communications engineering and his short-wave-listening hobby, acquiring an extensive, diverse collection of vintage and modern radio receivers, many of which are on display at the Pavek Museum.

Together, let’s celebrate Earl Bakken's extraordinary legacy and guarantee that his spirit of innovation lives on at the Pavek Museum. Help us reach our $100,000 fundraising goal with a donation today.