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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Cupertino resident Vince La Porta poses with a 1.2-GHz dish, located on the roof of Cupertino's City Hall, used for amateur television. La Porta is one of the people responsible for setting up the radio emergency services 13 years ago.
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Radio Days
Radio veteran honored for 13 years of service to city's emergency communications
By George Moore
Watching this gentleman scamper up and down an interior ladder that leads to the roof of Cupertino City Hall, one would never guess he had just celebrated his 80th birthday.
Longtime Cupertino resident Vince La Porta was honored with an award at Monday's city council meeting recognizing his 13 years of volunteering service to the community.
During this time, La Porta has been the lead technical person or the "engineer in charge" of the city's emergency radio communications center.
Marcia Garcia, coordinator of emergency services said he has become invaluable to both the public works and the Cupertino Amateur Radio Emergency Services (CARES) in which he maintains and upgrades its radio equipment and antennas.
"I don't know what we would do without him," Garcia said.
La Porta began his relationship with the city in 1988, when he attended the first meeting for CARES, which was organized by Richard "Skip" Stevens.
CARES provides communications support in times of declared emergency, and Stevens said he was affiliated with Sunnyvale's version since 1972.
"When I moved my residence to Cupertino, I discovered that it didn't have this program--so I organized one," Stevens said. "Vince was one of the first volunteers, and performs all the maintenance on the radio equipment and the antennas installed at city hall. He's quite a tireless worker."
La Porta has a long association with radio communications. During the depression in 1939, he got a job at Zenith Radio Corporation in Chicago for 40 cents an hour as a parts tracer. He credits his now-departed friend, Marian Plaza, as the person who keened his interest in radio and electronics.
"Marian taught me everything about radios," La Porta said. "He explained to me what they consisted of and what each part and component's function was."
La Porta worked his way up to a technician repairman, but left Zenith in 1942 to serve his country in the Air Force. He attended radar school at Fort Murphy, Fla., and was a radar reconnaissance operator aboard a B-29 bomber. When the war ended, 56 years ago this month, he was part of a fleet of B-29s that flew into Yokohama, Japan. He flew back to America on Christmas morning in 1945 and went back to work for Zenith a year later.
While working for Zenith, La Porta attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in the evenings and moved to California in 1951 to start his own business with a friend. They operated a radio and television sales and service store in Los Angeles until he sold his share of the partnership in 1954 and went to work for Lockheed in Van Nuys.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Cupertino resident Vince La Porta is one of the people responsible for setting up the Cupertino Amateur Radio Emergency Services 13 years ago. A former research specialist for Lockheed, La Porta has been a ham radio operator since 1956.
La Porta became a resident of Cupertino when he was transferred to the Sunnyvale plant in 1957. He retired from Lockheed as a research specialist engineer in 1984. In his 30 years with the company, he logged over 1 million miles on land and in the air performing atmospheric testing, tracking Russian satellites, and researching and developing for the installation of tracking systems.
Jim Oberhofer, engineering manager for Agilent Technologies, met La Porta in 1993 and took over as emergency coordinator for CARES in 1997.
"It wasn't until then that I got to know Vince and fully realized his importance to the organization," Oberhofer said. "He's really the guy behind the scenes that keeps all the equipment up and running. He has brought his industry experience to the communications field and has kept CARES on the air."
Oberhofer said La Porta thoroughly enjoys volunteering with the city and gets a lot of satisfaction out of seeing his handiwork put to practice.
"It's always nice when your career and your hobbies intersect," Oberhofer said.
La Porta enjoys traveling, operating ham radios, woodworking and electronics, but also finds time for his wife of 52 years, Mary. He enjoys spending time with his daughter, Mary Ann, his son, John, and all of his grandchildren--the eldest working for the movie industry in communications.
La Porta has an infectious personality and is well loved around city hall.
"He's been like a second father to me," Stevens said. "You might say my wife and I have been adopted by Vince, and we've adopted him."
Turning 80 this month doesn't appear to have slowed La Porta down, and it would not be surprising if he provides the city with another 13 years of service.
"As long as my health keeps up, I'll be here as long as they want to keep me around," he said.
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Cupertino, California Since 1947
