Men and women who invent new machinery, equipment or anything
else that improves life should be given more recognition in America
than they receive today.
The march of farm progress would have been impossible without
those who saw problems and found ways to solve them, even though it
took years to gain the ideal.
That goes for all else in our way of life television, radio,
automobiles, airplanes, computers, iron lungs and scanners, to name
just a few.
The importance of honoring inventors was voiced by J. Paul Lyet,
chairman of Sperry Corporation, at a recent company recognition
banquet for Sperry New Holland employees who had more than 15
patents to their credit since 1973.
Those men worked on all sorts of products manure spreaders, bale
throwers, forage blowers, and harvester headers to name a few and
to our mind they are typical of the kind of persons we need.
Lyet urged companies to ‘establish an environment for
innovation,’ and credited the breakthroughs with keeping his
firm prosperous. Sperry is steadily increasing the amount it
allocates for R&D research and development. Lyet recommended
also that creative thinking be fostered in all divisions
advertising, financing, packaging and others.
The successful inventor has three qualities, Lyet said. He has
insatiable curiosity; he is able to concentrate intensely, not
minding the clock, and he refuses to let setbacks discourage
him.
Many companies see the wisdom of TLC for inventors, those that
do not are courting disaster.
We also wish to speak for the independent invent or the man who
works in his own workshop or in his basement, trying to find new
and better ways to do what has been done before, or to produce
something new that fills a need.
Many of our readers, we insist, are men and women who can come
up with new ideas that can bring tremendous results.
Who have been some of the great inventors of the past? A list of
persons from New England who were inventors or contributed in other
ways to the advance of farming and country living, has been
compiled by one of our readers.
Dan Steinhoff, of New Ashford, Massachusetts 01237, compiled
this list that goes a long way back, for engine land readers. No
doubt you will feel others should have been mentioned also.
We offer the article because we believe that many persons who
restore old engines, and make them work again, have the skill to
score breakthroughs that can make history.
If America is to maintain and improve its standing in the world,
it must encourage everyone with good ideas to express them, get
them patented, and get them into use.