[2] Litton was both vocationally trained as a machinist and completed the college preparatory course route at Lick-Wilmerding of San Francisco.
There, Litton originated glass lathe techniques which made mass production of reliable high quality power tubes possible, and resulted in the award of wartime contracts to the company.
In 1932, he founded Litton Engineering Laboratories with his savings, and continued to experiment in the shop on his parents' Redwood City property.
[7] At Frederick Terman's request, Litton helped Stanford build a tube research lab, and recruit David Packard.
[8] During World War II, Litton participated in the design and production of microwave tubes used in communications and radar equipment, for which he was awarded the Presidential Certificate of Merit.
Another firm (later called Eimac) founded by fellow amateur radio operators William Eitel and Jack McCullough used Litton technology.
On November 4, 1953, he sold the vacuum tube manufacturing portion of the company to Electro Dynamics Corporation, which had been founded by Charles Bates "Tex" Thornton.
[2] His sons Charles Jr. and Larry carried on the business of producing glassworking lathes under the "Litton Engineering Laboratories" name in Grass Valley.