Boss Ket

Boss KetThe Life and Work of Charles F. Kettering

By Terry Geer December, 4th 2009

Early Life• Born on August 29, 1876

• The same year:• Telephone invented• U.S. Centennial

• He grew up on a farm in Loudonville, OH.

• His family was poor but he did not realize it .

• He liked his life and saw it as an opportunity.

Born to Build

He took apart and rebuilt his mother’s sewing machine when he was eight years old.

When he finished rebuilding it, it worked better than when it was new.

He wanted to go to college more than anything. He needed to know, “How?” and, “Why?”

He enjoyed taking things apart to figure out how they worked.

Inventors love to ask “Why?”

He wanted to know why grass was green.

He wanted to know why certain flowers bloom earlier than the rest.

He wanted to know why we can see through glass .

•If you told him, “Glass is transparent,” he would ask, “but why is it that way? How does it work?”

What do you think he did after

he graduated high school?

Teenage Teacher

• After graduation he began teaching at the Bunker Hill Community Schoolhouse… before going to college!

• He wanted to save money to go to college.

• Although he was barely older than his students, they respected him.

He inspired many students to improve their grades through his teaching.

Eyes on College He went to the College of Wooster

in 1896.

His eyes were weak. His poor vision began to cause terrible headaches.

The headaches made it too hard to read anything.

He was forced to drop out of school to let his eyes heal.

He returned to teaching for another two years.

O-H-I-O!!!• Charles returned to college

but not the College of Wooster.

• Charles went to Ohio State University instead. (Go Buckeyes!)

• He decided to study electrical engineering.

• After a little more than a year, the headaches returned. He had to leave college again

On the line• Charles took a job digging

holes for telephone poles in 1900.

• The phone company noticed his skills.

• They asked him to make improvements to the phone lines.

• He fell in love with a woman he met on the phone during a phone line repair.

What did Charles Do Next?

A.) Stay at the phone company and save money to get married?

C.) Return to the family farm to lead a simpler life.

B.) Go back to college again even though he could barely read the text books.

Charles Kettering had strong feelings about failure

“The only time…

…you don’t want to fail…

…is the last time you try.”

-Charles Kettering

Third time’s a charm!

• He returned to OSU in 1901.

• He had classmates read his textbooks to him to avoid straining his eyes.

• He worked for the phone company every summer until he graduated in 1904.

• A professor convinced him to take a job in Dayton, Ohio after he graduated.

National Cash Register

• The job he took was at National Cash Register in Dayton, OH.

• His first challenge at NCR was to create the first electric cash register.

• The old registers used a lever that made people’s arms tired.

• Most people believed a motor any smaller than the register itself could not do the job.

Charles proved them wrong.

Most people believed that a small motor would quickly overheat and wear out.

National Cash Register cont.

• Charles disagreed. The motor had time to rest and cool since it wasn’t always running.

• He later used a similar idea on one of his auto inventions.

• He was highly respected by most people that worked for him, just like his students had been.

At NCR he was given a

nickname.

Did you catch it at the beginning

of the slideshow?

Correct Answer:

BOSS KET

Wedding Bells and Automobiles.

• Charles married his wife Olive on August 1, 1905.

• While waiting for the train to go on their honeymoon, they saw a man having car trouble.

• In 1905 cars were still a new invention.

• Charles fixed the car, and the man took the newlyweds for their first car ride ever as a way to say “thank-you!”

The Barn Gang• Charles and a friend at

NCR named Edward Deeds wanted to improve automobiles.

Deeds’ Barn

• They started designing a new ignition system in Deeds’ barn during their spare time.

• As others joined, they started calling themselves the “Barn Gang.”

• Their new ignition system increased auto performance by:

• Minimizing Stall-outs• Increasing battery life

ten fold.

DELCO (Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company)

Ket’s original sketch of the ignition

• They sold the idea to Cadillac Motor Company.

• Cadillac ordered 8,000 units.

• They didn’t even have a company name so they named it DELCO.

That Stubborn Old Crank• Early automobiles were

started by turning a crank.

• Women didn’t drive because it was too difficult to start a car. Click here to see why.

• Many people were being injured by backfiring cranks. Broken arms were becoming common.

• One man even died from his cranking injuries!

Hand crank start.flv

Henry Leland, the president of Cadillac, knew the man who was killed by the faulty crank .

Close to Home

The man had stopped to help a stranded woman start one of Leland’s Cadillacs.

Leland didn’t want anyone else getting hurt by his cars, so he asked Ket to invent a self starting engine.

Henry Leland

The crank broke the man’s jaw. He died from an infection caused by the injury.

“The price of progress…

• Ket built the first self starter in the barn but it was bigger than the whole car!

…is trouble.”

• Charles remembered his days at NCR.

• If the starter were used in short bursts it would have time to cool, like the cash register motor!

THE BARN GANG DID IT!

They successfully installed the first working self starter in Ket’s car on Christmas Eve, 1910.

There was only one problem…

…It fit into Ket’s Roadster but not

the 1912 test model sent to them

four days later!

One step forward, two steps back

• The designers at Cadillac didn’t leave any space to put the starter in.

• They had less than two months to start over and shrink it further.

• In the last five days, the Barn Gang kept themselves awake with coffee and worked 24-hour shifts to meet a February 17th deadline.

Down to the wire…literally.

• Early on the last day they tested their final product and it didn’t work.

Charles and his Auto Self-Starter

• They were all so tired that none of them could think clear enough to fix it.

• They called an old friend at NCR to take a fresh look. He fixed some bad wiring and the car started perfectly.

Charles left immediately to catch the last train to Detroit with

Cadillac’s first self-startingcar in tow.

Click here to see the 1912 Cadillac

Hand crank start.flv

The Effect of Kettering’s Electronic Self-Starter

•The company grew from 12 to 1,200 employees in only 18 months.

• Women were then able to drive comfortably and safely. Starting a car became safer and more reliable for everyone.

• The Self-Starter Engine also acted as a generator while the main engine was on.• Power to keep engine running• Power to use electronic bulbs instead of acetylene

lamps

Who’s the Boss?• People called him “Boss”, but one

of his favorite mottos was, “Let the problem be the Boss.”

• He didn’t care what people thought the rules were.

• He would say, “We think we are further along the path of knowledge than we actually are.”

• He didn’t care for experts much.

• He said, if you show a new problem to an expert, “He’ll be too educated to solve it.”

His home, Ridgeleigh Terrace, was the first home to have air conditioning.

He invented a gas powered generator for farm families to provide electricity in hard-to-reach places.

He produced the first lightweight diesel engine. His work with diesel helped improve the railroad business.

Other Inventions

Ridgeleigh Terrace

Other Achievements

• After selling DELCO to GM, Charles was Vice President of General Motors Research Corp for 31 years.

• Van Buren township, the site of Ridgeleigh Terrace, was renamed the Village of Kettering in 1952.

• The General Motors Institute was renamed Kettering University in 1998.

• Boss Kettering lost his wife, Olive, and two sisters to Cancer.

• He and G.M. President Alfred Sloan started the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

Other Achievements cont.

• He developed hundreds of patents and was granted more than three dozen honorary doctor’s degrees

• He had one son, Eugene Kettering, who was also a skilled engineer

• He was given flying instructions by The Wright brothers in 1912. He loved to fly

• In 1916 Kettering, Edward Deeds and Orville Wright built the first airfield opened within the limits of a city

• Later on, Ket helped organize Dayton Wright Airplane Co. to fuel his passion for aviation research

The same till the end• Charles Kettering rarely

worried about the past since the future is, “Where (he) had to spend the rest of (his) life.”

• He was still trying to find out why grass was green when he suffered multiple Strokes and died in 1958.

• He didn’t think of his research as him “Having a job.” In the end, the job had him. That’s just the way he liked it .

Review

How was he looked at by the people who worked with

him?

He was admired and respected

How did Boss Ket meet his wife

Olive?

He spoke to her on the phone while repairing a phone line.

Why was it necessary to

create the automatic starter?

People were getting injured by difficult hand cranks.

Which group of people were given the opportunity to

drive because of his electric starter?

Females! They no longer had to worry about turning an annoying crank.

How many times did Charles

Kettering attend college before he

actually completed it.

It took him three tries.

With such poor eyes, what did Ket

have to do to complete his

assignments at OSU?

He had his friends read him the lessons aloud.

Works CitedVolti, Rudi. "Electric Starter." The Facts On File Encyclopedia of

Science, Technology, and Society. New York: Facts On File, Inc. 1999. Science Online. Facts On FileInc. 12, November 2009.

Cho, Dan "A Good Start." Technology Review 107.8 (2004): 92. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 12 Nov. 2009.

Hall of Fame/Inventor Profile: Charles Franklin Kettering. National Inventors Hall of Fame Website, 2002. Web. 13 November, 2009

Charles F. Kettering, 1876-1958. IEEE Website (Biographies), 2009. Web. 13 November, 2009.

Scharchburg, Richard P. Kettering University Website. Kettering University, 2009. Web. 13 November, 2009

McPherson Young, Rosamond. Boss Ket: ALife of Charles F. Kettering. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1961. Print.

Works Cited cont.Lavine, Sigmund. Kettering: Master Inventor. New York: Dodd,

Mead and Company, 1961. PrintBoyd, T.A. Prophet of Progress. Selections from the Speeches

of Charles F. Kettering. New York: E.P. Dutton and CO. Inc., 1961. Print

Bernstein, Mark. Grand Eccentrics. Turning the Cuntury: Dayton and the Inventing of America. Wilmington, OH: Orange Frazer Press, 1996. Print

Zehnpfenning, Gladys. Charles F. Kettering: Inventor and Idealist. Minneapolis: Denison, 1962. Print

Mieth, Hansel. Life Conference at Ann Arbor. 1939. LIFE. Web. 13, November 2009.

Clip Art. Sewing Machine. Microsoft Office. 13, November 2009

Works Cited cont.Weber, Paul. “Does Grass Hold Secret of Hidden Power?”

Modern Mechanix. May 1935. Web. 13, Nov 2009Clip Art. Apple, Books, Chair. Microsoft Office. 13, November

2009Clip Art. Glasses. Microsoft Office. 13, November 2009Clip Art. Phone Line. Microsoft Office. 13, November 2009Clip Art. Coffee. Microsoft Office. 13, November 2009Clip Art. Cap and Books. Microsoft Office. 13, November 2009Clip Art. Wedding. Microsoft Office. 13, November 2009Ohio State University. Flag Wallpaper. 2009. Web. 13,

November 2009Martel, Mark. Antique Cash Register. 2009. Web. 13,

November 2009

Works Cited cont.Engineers Club of Dayton. Barn Gang. 1912. Web. 13,

November 2009.Kettering, Charles. Patent Sketch. January 1908. Web. 13,

November 2009Unknown Photographer. Crank Motor. 1999. Web. 13, Nov

2009Engineers Club. Self Starter. 1914. Web. 13, November 2009Kettering University. Solar Lab. 2009. Web, November 2009Ketteringoh.org. Ridgeleigh Terrace. 2009. Web. 13, Nov 2009Detroit News Online. Henry Leland. 2009. Web. 4, Dec 2009Clip Art. Balloons. Microsoft Office. 4, Dec 2009Clip Art. Train. Microsoft Office. 4, Dec 2009

Works Cited cont.University of Dayton. Dayron_Map_Ohio. 1992. Web. 13,

November 2009