Charles Franklin Kettering :: essays research papers

Charles Franklin KetteringCharles F. Kettering Doing the right function at the right time By Richard P. Scharchburg, Thompson Professor of Industrial biography The Man... Charles Franklin Kettering was born on a farm near Loundonville, Ohio, August 29, 1876. after graduation from high school, he accepted a teaching rate in a one-room rural school. Although highly successful as a teacher, his mind was set on going to college. In the summer of 1896, he entered the College of Wooster (Ohio). As a result of long and intense hours of study, his eyesight deteriorated to the backsheesh that he was obligate to leave college and return to teaching. In 1898, he entered the engineer school at Ohio State, but over again his poor eyesight forced him to drop out during his freshman year. For the next two years he worked on a telephone line crew, and then once again entered Ohio State, finally completing his galvanisingal engineering degree in 1904. aft(prenominal) graduation, Kettering t ook a job in the inventions department at the National coin Register Company (NCR) in Dayton, Ohio. There he developed an electric motor for cash registers, the OK Charge Phone for department stores and several(prenominal) other contributions to a revolution then taking place in business machines. In 1909, Kettering and Edward A. Deeds, his associate at NCR, formed their own industrial research laboratory, the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (later known as DELCO). Within terce years, they had produced a new all-electric starting, ignition and lighting system for automobiles. The system frontmost appe ared as standard equipment on the 1912 Cadillac and as its use spread, women could conveniently constrain drivers without the assistance of a chauffeur. DELCO was eventually sold to full general Motors and became the foundation for the General Motors Research Corporation of which Kettering became vice president in 1920. The list of innovations and inventions that are credi ted to Charles F. (nicknamed "Boss") Kettering is impressive. His book of patents contains more than 300 separate applications that wrap from a portable lighting system for farms to coolants for refrigerators and air conditioners. Other patents include a World War I "aerial torpedo," a trick for the treatment of venereal disease, and an incubator for premature infants. Duco paint and Ethyl accelerator pedal were also his ideas and he was instrumental in their development.