The Lonely Search for Truth

In engineering and in life, there is knowledge, information, and wisdom and each is independent of the other, but related. You can’t be wise without information and knowledge, but you can have information and knowledge and be foolish.

In my field of work, engineering, science and technology, the machines I design must function the way they were intended and either they do or they don’t. Truth and facts are of critical importance. I can’t talk a machine into functioning properly. And the force of gravity, or the laws of physics, are the same for everyone. Always.

In my specialty, there are technical books that were written over 100 years ago, and gearing in general has been around for thousands of years. I am amazed how much has changed and progressed over those years, but also how much that is fundamentally the same and that was known about it even back then.

Actor Dwayne Hickman (1934-2022) in the eponymous role of Doby Gillis sitting on a park bench in front of a reproduction of Auguste Rodin's statue The Thinker. The TV sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” during season 1, later shortened to “Dobie Gillis” aired on CBS from 1959-1963.

The arc of history is the continual accumulation of knowledge and information, but it’s an ongoing process. It’s a never-ending journey and we are constantly striving to get closer. There is such a thing as ultimate truth and knowledge, but that we never get there and never fully understand it. There is no such thing as “settled science.” With science, knowledge, truth and information are always evolving, being questioned, and in a continuous search with no end point. There are, however, some basic bedrock principles which are eternal and unchanging.

“All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

— Arthur Shopenhaur, German philosopher (1788-1860)

Curiosity motivates the acquisition of knowledge and learning

The first amendment to the US constitution recognizes our right to freedom of expression; free speech and prohibits the government from interfering with these rights. Common practice and understanding have expanded these rights to include other areas of private communication, and other private venues like Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter). In many areas of life and subjects, even science and medicine, there are usually at least two or more differing viewpoints and approaches to the issue at hand. In the past, it was recognized that an open discussion of all sides of an issue was beneficial, allowed and preferred. This is not true today, unfortunately.

I have always believed in and tried to know and understand the principles and beliefs of both sides of any issue in which I am interested. This is the only way that I can develop a fully informed opinion on it. I try to know enough that I can intelligently discuss either side.

Some so-called experts on either side of an issue ignore the opposing view. This might be due to their usual way of thinking, a bias towards traditional views, or a conflict of interest. They might struggle to think differently.

There are those who don’t even believe in the concept of ultimate truth. Either they believe in moral relativism or situational ethics where truth depends on context and other things, and it is flexible. They believe that each person has their own “truth”; your truth vs. my truth, but no absolute truth exists that is the same for everyone.

To those people I say: if you jump off a building you will then understand the ultimate truth and reality of gravity.

Some people believe whatever an authority figure tells them to believe. Others follow the majority opinion and believe in whatever is popular. This is like what in the animal kingdom is called herding or following the herd. In humans, if one person has a different opinion or is different in any way, like appearance, from the herd, they stand out and can more easily be attacked. Often, they are singled out, ridiculed, ostracized, or discriminated against. This seems to be human nature and sadly has occurred throughout history. This starts wars.

In any field of endeavor or any belief system, there is usually an entrenched system of thought and way of doing things. Sometimes it is incorrect, and it can be improved upon or changed entirely, and a new one can take its place. This is the basis of all human progress and has been happening since time immemorial.

Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are two examples of this process and way of thinking. They both disrupted several entrenched industries and changed the world.

Curiosity is the main driver of this.

Humans inherently do not deal well with uncertainty. In fact, they intensely dislike it and deal with it in different ways. Some simply fill in the blanks and assume things (make them up) that may or may not be true. They are often wrong. Others do some research and try to learn the correct facts. Still others follow the crowd and assume popular thinking, without doing any thinking or discovery of their own.

Most often, people come to have a strong belief in a system and develop a bias for it or derive financial benefit from it which initiates a conflict of interest. It can become so entrenched that it is extremely difficult to change. This condition may last for many years or even decades. Hence, as Upton Sinclair famously said, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Many times, to move forward requires a new generation to be born that becomes familiar with the revised system.

In science this is known as Planck’s principle paraphrased as science progresses one funeral at a time when the old guard dies off and a new one takes its place. This happens in medicine, law, engineering and many other human endeavors.

The best way to resolve these conflicting priorities is to practice critical thinking using creativity, logic and being open to new ideas. It’s also about admitting that you could be wrong (humility), being introspective, using innovative thinking, and staying abreast with the latest technology.

The Ability to Fly Upside Down Helped Win a World War

My Grandfather and the Bendix Fuel Injection Carburetor

In the movie “Top Gun Maverick”, Tom Cruise, as a fighter jet pilot, is shown flying upside down for what seems like more than half the time. He makes it seem like it is a normal thing to do. In reality, airplanes and specifically military airplanes, have not always been able to fly upside down.

In the history of aviation, it is a development that first took place in the 1930s. Before then, when a plane would try to fly upside down for any more than a very short time, because of the negative force of gravity, the engine would either be starved of or flooded with fuel and would stall, only to re-start again when going upright. This would produce a puff of black smoke, which, in combat, would alert enemy aircraft that there was another plane in the area. It would also limit the pilot’s ability to perform certain maneuvers.

Needless to say, the ability to fly upside down was and still is a major advantage in wartime military combat.

My grandfather, Jeptha Mackenzie Miller, commonly known as “Mack” for obvious reasons, and Frank Mock developed the injection (pressure) carburetor in 1938. This carburetor enabled airplanes to fly upside down, and through high G turns, and climbs and dives without difficulty. It was a major innovation. It did away with the float and was what we would today call mechanical single port or throttle body fuel injection.

Upon further development of this injection carburetor, the Bendix-Stromberg carburetors became the most commonly used carburetors (they still called them carburetors) in World War II aircraft. These devices truly did help the U.S. and its Allies win the war.

J. Mackenzie Miller

Grandpa Mack was chief engineer for the Stromberg Carburetor division of Bendix Corporation in South Bend, Indiana, from 1929 until his untimely death at age 49 in 1944. Frank Mock was a prolific inventor at Bendix who eventually held 170 patents.

Early evidence I found for this is a patent Grandpa Mack applied for in 1929, which was issued in 1932 for an earlier version of such a carburetor.

The development of this carburetor is immortalized in a comic strip created by the famous Chicago Tribune illustrator Walter Berndt in 1939. This depicted a scene in Grandpa Mack’s office showing the development of the Stromberg Injection Carburetor.

Written at the bottom of this strip is a reference to the production value of these carburetors in January 1944, of $11,000,000 ($11 million, for this one month alone). This is the current equivalent of $189 million. This was during the height of World War II. That’s a lot of carburetors!

This commissioned cartoon, “Development of the Stromberg Injection Carburetor” by Walter Berndt dated 11/13/1939, depicts my grandfather Mack Miller (in the wide brimmed hat) in his office at Bendix Corp. in South Bend, Ind. Below in handwriting marks the significance of their work: “Production Jan. 1944 $11,000,000 (Per Mo.)”

Unfortunately, Grandpa Mack did not live to see the end of the war, which occurred a year after he died.

My father, Bob Miller, was in the Army in Italy and North Africa when he learned that his father was gravely ill and that he needed to come back to Indiana. He then traveled by troop ship, which took one month. But he did arrive in time to be able to see his father just before he died in June 1944. Mack held on through sheer grit and determination for that month to see his only child one last time before he died. Dad was only 21 years old.

In 1951, dad went to work for Bendix and eventually retired from there in 1981.

In the late 1950s, Bendix offered an automotive fuel injection system called Electrojector. It was commercially unsuccessful, as the technology was not advanced enough at that time, was very expensive to produce and was unreliable. This system eventually became the Bosch D-Jetronic. Automotive fuel injection did not become common in passenger cars until the mid-1980s. Today virtually all cars (and aircraft) have some form of fuel injection. The last car sold in America to have a carburetor was the 1990 Subaru Justy. These systems are based on the principles and development that my grandfather and Frank Mock pioneered back in the 1930s. I don’t believe that either one of these men has received the credit that they deserve for this.

After Grandpa Mack died, Frank Mock lived another 20 years, before passing away at age 80 in 1964. His death notice and obituary were prominently featured in the New York Times.

My main regret is that I was never able to meet Grandpa Mack, as I was born years after he died. I would have enjoyed knowing him. In some ways I am following in his footsteps and standing on his shoulders. I have been chief engineer, as he was, for three different companies; have patents like he did and am currently working with gas turbine engines (the successor to the radial piston engines Mack worked with).

So, let this serve as my tribute to Mack and acknowledgement of his significant accomplishments and contributions to the aviation industry and to our country. I am proud of what he achieved, in a life cut way too short.

Flying upside down is a metaphor for doing anything that is not normal or natural for a human being to do, or achieving things that expand the envelope of human knowledge, experience, and endeavors. As such, we can all have our moments where we fly upside down.

Author’s note:
I really enjoyed researching and writing about this side of my family, the Millers. It is uncanny how much I followed in my grandfather’s footsteps ― a man that I never met. And I am amazed that I found that framed cartoon hidden in my office closet. It hung in my childhood home when I was growing up. I didn’t understand its meaning or significance then, but I do now.

Fairleigh Dickinson does the impossible. Lessons for Purdue and the rest of us.

No. 1 seed Purdue University lost in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Friday to 16th seeded Fairleigh Dickinson (FDU)―a team that wasn’t even supposed to be in the tournament let alone beat the Boilermakers in historic fashion. With an average team height of 6’3”, FDU is the smallest team in this year’s tournament. Purdue’s team is much taller and has 7’4” Zach Edey, a national player of the year. Purdue became only the second No. 1 seeded team in history out of 150 to lose to a No. 16 seed.

In a David-versus-Goliath moment, No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson beat No. 1 seed Purdue in the first round of the 2023 NCAA men's basketball tournament and stuns the world. Photo by Rick Osentoski/USA TODAY Sports.

Before the game, FDU’s coach Tobin Anderson seemed to have taunted the heavily favored Boilermakers by stating that he knew how to beat Purdue and then told his team that they could and would win. He said his team could do the impossible, stun the world, and then they did.

Was the FDU coach lying, exaggerating, or just being overly optimistic to motivate his team? You decide. Heck, the coach told reporters he had packed only one set of clothes for the trip and that he would have to do some laundry after the historic win. I have a better idea. Coach Anderson could borrow some game-time clothes from Purdue coach Matt Painter as he would not be needing them. Painter and his team would be returning to West Lafayette, Ind. where they often spend the month of March.

Painter’s stated goals for a season are to achieve a high ranking during the regular season, win the Big Ten title and earn a high seed in the NCAA tournament. I don’t recall him saying the goal is to be in the Final Four let alone win a national championship. Purdue has not made it to Final Four during Painter’s tenure or before him since 1980. He is the winningest coach to never have made it to a Final Four.

This causes people to say that it is easier for Purdue to put a man on the moon than to get its team to the NCAA’s Final Four.

Purdue plays home games in Mackey Arena located on John R. Wooden Drive. Wooden is widely considered the greatest college basketball coach of all time. As a student-athlete, he was a 5’10” guard, and three-time All American, who played on Purdue’s 1932 championship team, the school’s only national basketball championship. This predates the NCAA tournament era. That was 91 years ago. That in-state rival college down the road has five men’s basketball national championship banners.

Wooden’s philosophy was simple. Focus relentlessly on the fundamentals. Motivate each player on the team to achieve at the highest level and potential of which they are capable. And concentrate on only one game―the next game. He knew that if you string together enough next games, then it was possible to have the back-to-back undefeated seasons, back-to back national championships, and 10 national championships in a 12-year period which he did as coach. The winning and championships take care of themselves. At the most basic level, John Wooden considered himself a teacher, and that was his most important role and contribution to the sport.

Purdue seems to have been playing not to lose, rather than to win. They would be wise to follow the example of their most famous sports alumnus.

Many times, the impossible only seems that way

On any given night, either team could win the game. And many times, the lower ranked or seeded team wins and when it does, the impossible just became real. This happens in business as well as sports.

In my career as an engineer, I recall two times when this happened to me. The first time, when I was attempting to do something that I thought was difficult, but not impossible. The president of the company told me that they had tried it before, and it didn’t work. When I did accomplish that task, he then said, “Yes, but you’ll never be able to do it again!”

For the second time, I had just finished a very complex design, a 2-speed transfer case for a large articulated haul truck. A colleague told me that he believed it would never work. Later, when I was in Norway riding in a prototype of that truck, up and down the streets of the small Norwegian town where the prototype was located, I had once again apparently achieved “the impossible.”

My boss at the time adhered to the old saying, “The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.”

What you believe, you can achieve

FDU’s coach and team believed in themselves and their ability to do the impossible and, by doing so, achieved greatness and college basketball immortality. Purdue, not so much. The players lost their confidence, and it showed in defeat.

Believing in yourself and motivating others to also believe in themselves and to achieve their greatest potential is a critical task for a business leader and team builder.

Suddenly, the impossible becomes possible.

You Always Remember Your First

Before joining Fairfield Mfg., now part of Dana Corp., I had never designed anything or worked with off-angle gearing. I was a young engineer, curious, and ready to learn. And it didn’t take long before I successfully designed my first complete gearbox.

My ‘first’ was creating a new gearbox for Jacobs Wind Electric Co. in Minneapolis, Minnesota for one of its upcoming machines. Dating back to 1922, Jacobs was one of the earliest manufacturers of wind turbines.

Mentoring me through it all was my first boss and the one that I’d work for the next 29 years ― Jim Dammon, the longtime manager, and then vice-president of Fairfield’s custom gear and gearbox design engineering group.

Prior to my work at Fairfield, I was chief engineer at Schafer Gear Works, now Shafer Industries in South Bend, Indiana. There, I learned gear manufacturing: mostly parallel axis gearing, as Schafer did not make right angle gearing other than face gears and some fine pitch bevel gears.

The Jacobs design presented a few challenges. It was to have a shaft angle that was nine degrees off vertical, offset horizontally and was a speed increasing drive, rather than the much more common and more easily designed speed reducing drive. So, under Jim’s mentoring, I quickly learned all I could about Hypoid gearing, speed increasing gears, off-angle gearing, and shaft, bearing, seal and housing design.

Rick Miller’s custom-designed gearbox featured in a 1980’s print ad by Fairfield MFG & Jacobs Wind Electric Co.

The result is pictured here. Some of these gearboxes are still in use today. Both Fairfield and Jacobs ended up displaying this gearbox in several of their print advertisements. Since then, Fairfield has used several more gearboxes of my design in their print advertisements. 

When I first designed the Jacobs gearbox, I worked with M.L. Jacobs, the co-founder of the company and a legend and pioneer in the wind power industry. M.L. died a few years after I completed this project. Recently, I caught up with the co-founder’s son Paul, now president of the company his late dad co-founded. We reminisced about those days and how the wind energy business and Jacobs has changed over the years.

From those early days and since, the lessons I’ve learned are that you must start somewhere. Everyone does. It helps immensely to have a great mentor like I did in Jim Dammon. Working for a great company like Fairfield was beneficial as well. I appreciate the many opportunities I was provided there as a design engineer to grow and be creative.

Even though it was only a small machine; 10 KW and then 17 KW, I eventually designed gearboxes for wind turbines up to 300 KW.

My advice to my younger self: Don’t be overwhelmed when a task seems very difficult. Persevere and you can be successful, and it will be very satisfying. Believe in yourself and know that you can usually do more than you think you can.

That Jacobs gearbox was the start of what eventually became over 300 complete gearbox designs I created over a period of 36 years. Every project, including my three patented inventions, was interesting and rewarding. But I am proud of and will always remember my first.

A Rock-Solid Friendship

My best friend from childhood was Rusty (given name Paul). I first met him when we were about six years old. Rusty lived three houses down the street, and we attended the same school through high school. Our fathers worked at the same factory on the other side of town and car-pooled together to work. Rusty’s father was a mechanical engineer like I became.

I have written about Rusty before here. We shared many of the same interests back then and both loved anything mechanical and that moved under its own power. We built a crude go-cart using his grandfather’s lawn mower engine and with parts from his brother Tallie’s soap box derby car. I vacationed with Rusty and his parents on a trip to Wisconsin where his family was from. The black and white picture on the left is from that childhood trip.

My family and I moved away when Rusty and I were 13 years old, and we lost track of each other for the most part.

Fast forward to 2018 when I looked up Rusty and we started communicating again. We agreed to get together with our wives. Due to scheduling conflicts, followed by the Pandemic, our reunion was on hold. Then after many years, my childhood friend and I finally did meet for dinner this summer: Rusty and his lovely wife Trisha; me and my wife Monica.

The color photo on the right was taken at the restaurant. Notice the similarities, none of which we planned; it was totally spontaneous. Rusty is still half a head taller than I; and in both pictures, he is standing on the left of me and there are rocks as a background.

It had been decades since I had last seen Rusty. But by the end of our time together, it was like we just saw each other last week. That is how it is for long-time friends, particularly ones who knew each other as young children and shared a long time together during their formative years. He is the friend that I have known the longest.

We discovered that we both still have a lot in common and share many of the same interests and backgrounds.

I plan on continuing my friendship with Rusty in the coming years and am very grateful that we finally got together after all this time.

True friendship is hard to find and stands the test of time.

Death of a dream. Birth of another.

I have written of the go-cart that I built and drove as a child here.

Many years ago I bought (probably at another garage sale) this 8 horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine (shown below), with the intended purpose of someday building a go-cart powered by this engine with my oldest son, David. He is middle aged now and we never did build that cart. Two more children came, Megan and Will, but neither of them wanted to build a go-cart with me either. Part of my thinking was “what I wouldn’t have done as a kid to have this more powerful engine available to me back then”. This was more than double the horsepower of any of my engines in those days.

So, this engine sat in my garage, collecting dust for more than 20 years. I never found another use for it.

There was a garage sale in my neighborhood recently, and my wife and I put some things out to sell. When going through my garage, I saw this engine, knew it no longer had a place in my life, and decided to put it out to sell.

As the garage sale was coming to an end and the engine remained unsold, one of our neighbors stopped by. Her husband builds and races go-carts with their 14-year-old grandson, who was with her. I asked the young man if he wanted the engine and he said that he did not. But he had a friend that he thought might want it for a go-cart that he was building. After a quick call, it was determined that this friend did indeed want the engine. So, I ended up giving this engine at no charge to this 14-year-old boy to put on his go-cart.

I must admit that I was a little sad to see that engine leave, and the finality of what it represented. But I was happy that it was going to a young mechanically inclined person who would hopefully enjoy it like I would have and could put it to the appropriate use as I had intended. This is as it should be.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of many happy and fun times for this young man and the fulfillment of his dream.

I have had many equally great experiences, equal to or better than building a go-cart, with all my children; but I realize that my go-cart building days with them are in the past now, and that is fine with me. But the possibility of enjoying this with grandchildren is a story yet to be written. I would probably buy a new gas engine, or maybe it would be an electric engine at that time.  I can’t wait!

My Road to Tesla

Key takeaways:

• Always help those just starting their career.

• It’s nice to be able to drive the results of your work.

• You never know where or when you will find another Purdue Boilermaker.

In 2014, I started a powertrain design engineering consulting department within Fairfield Mfg. (now part of Dana Corp.) with me as the only one working on this function out of the 1,100 employees.  My first customer was Tesla Motors through my connection with fellow Purdue grad Ryan Boris. I spent parts of four months in late 2014 and early 2015 working at Tesla, mostly on site at Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

My work there was on the development of the Model S front drive gears and transmission. It was an interesting, challenging and most enjoyable time, although everyone there works extremely hard and expects the same of you. It was truly a great way to finish my long career as chief engineer at Fairfield, as I left Fairfield a few months after completing my work at Tesla. I then started Innovative Drive Solutions, LLC.

The way this came about was interesting. Over many years, I have often helped and served as a mentor to mechanical engineering students at Purdue University, mostly on the Mini Baja or Formula V programs, or on their senior project. Around 2010, I met and helped a senior student at Purdue, Ryan Boris. Years later, I ran into Ryan at a technical conference. He told me that he worked at Tesla and asked me if I wanted to help them. I said that I did, and he asked me if I could be there the following week.

That was my initiation to the world of work at Tesla and the very quick pace of it. Ryan is now the Geartrain Engineering manager at Tesla.  But back then, he was my boss and client, a switch of roles.

I rarely get to personally experience the results of any of the projects and designs that I create. They usually are deeply embedded in another end product. I don’t own a hay baler, forklift, Victory motorcycle, or a piece of construction or mining equipment. But I do drive an automobile and a Tesla Model 3 is my main everyday car.

I get to experience the smoothness, silence, instantaneous response, and power of an electric car; and not just any electric car, but a Tesla — the best on the road. I now know what a significant car and car company it is. I had a wonderful opportunity when the company was younger to experience working there among some of the most intelligent and highly qualified people that I have ever worked with, especially Elon Musk. I cherish every minute of the time I got to spend there and consider myself fortunate.

I now realize every day how great a car it really is.

I take three lessons from my time at Tesla.

• Always help those at a different stage of their career and especially those still in college, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because you never know where they might end up and how you can help them further in the future, or if they can help you.

• It is very satisfying when you get an opportunity to directly experience an end product that you have worked on and had a hand in shaping.

• You never know where or when you will find another Purdue Boilermaker.

Boys to Men: What YMCA Indian Guides Taught Me About Leadership and Life

During my childhood, Indian Guides (now called the more anodyne “Adventure Guides”) was a YMCA program for fathers and sons. My dad and I were part of a “tribe” comprised six fathers and their sons: Dean, Steve, Jim, Bill, Larry and me; Ricky as I was known back then.

Indian Guides’ purpose was to enhance the father/son bond and to facilitate fathers teaching their sons what it means to be a man, to pass along the accumulated wisdom of the ages and good values: morality, honesty and integrity and how to live a good and meaningful life in this world.

It also sought to educate on the American Indian way of life. We learned respect for our environment (air, water and earth), what being in harmony with nature means, and how to live off the land (hunting, fishing). Building a healthy mind, spirit and body were goals.

Me and a plaster Indian head that my dad and I made together.

I have many fond memories of this time of my life. It was the 1960’s, we were eight years old and pals forever. The six of us young boys, my tribe, were elementary and middle school classmates and graduated together from the same high school a decade later.

The medicine men in our tribe were Steve’s father who was a doctor and administrator of the hospital where I, and probably all six of us were born. His signature is on my birth certificate. Bill’s dad was a family practice doctor and my father’s physician from that time until my dad’s death in 1991.

We six boys became men, each successful in his own right. Here’s how we applied what we learned.

As my regular blog readers know, I am a Purdue-educated mechanical engineer. I began my career in the gear company that my grandfather started in South Bend, Indiana back in the ‘30’s. Then, I was the long-time chief engineer at the largest gear and geared products company in North America. It 2018, that company sold for $600 million. After that, I started my own power transmission design engineering consulting company, which is what I do now.

Steve became a doctor and works at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota as a diagnostic radiologist.

Bill, after serving in the Air Force, also became a doctor and works in emergency and urgent care medicine in southern Illinois.

Larry, a graduate of both Notre Dame and Harvard, took over his father’s overhead crane company, expanded it and sold it in 2012. He then became executive director of The Crane Certification Association of America. Today, he is a consultant to the overhead crane industry.

Jim became general manager of the Dodge division of Chrysler Corporation, then vice-president and head of its Motorsports Division. He left Chrysler to become president of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). 

Dean, a perpetual motion machine who loved sports and played almost every sport in high school, formed a sports marketing company and organized hundreds of half-marathons around the country.

Although all of us achieved success in our chosen endeavors, I am amazed that of the six of us in my tribe, four ended up in our father’s, or in my case my grandfather’s and uncle’s business and/or profession. That is two doctors, like their dads; and two in a technical and engineered product field; (one in overhead cranes and one in gears and gearboxes). Jim’s father was an engineer at the same company where my father worked, and Dean’s father owned a construction company, but they both ended up as businessmen.

When I had a son of my own and it became my time to pass along the tradition, my son David and I joined Indian Guides. There were two lawyer fathers in our tribe, and although we were known as the Sioux tribe, it was not the “Sue as in lawsuit” tribe. I’m sure that the name was just a coincidence. I enjoyed sharing the Indian Guide experience with my young son and passing along the traditions and fond memories that I made with my own dad.

The lesson here is that we as people are always setting an example for others, and teaching them; sons, daughters, co-workers, and the next generation, peers and those we formally mentor. This is either by our actions or just by the way we live our lives. Others observe us and pay attention to what we are doing or not doing, and it has an impact — hopefully a positive one.

To paraphrase Apple founder Steve Jobs, we all put our own dent in the universe and add to the flow of life. We are all passing along our accumulated knowledge and experience to others. May we do it well.

I will leave you with this the song we used to sing all those years ago: Pals Forever which is sung to the tune of Clementine.

Pals forever. Pals forever. That’s our slogan. That’s our song.

Boys are stronger. Dad’s feel younger, when they take the boys along.

Dads are for it. Moms adore it. And the boys all think it’s fine.

Pals forever. Pals forever. Y Guides will have good times.

Through the days and through the years, we will wander side by side.

Pals forever. Pals forever. The Great Spirit as our guide.

Come fly with me

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Rick Miller met up with Team Harmony in the aeronautical engineering test lab at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas; July 2019.

Congratulations to Texas A&M’s Team Harmony who participated in Boeing’s GoFly contest’s final fly off this weekend at Moffett Field in Mountainview, California. Vying for the $1 million dollar grand prize, the team was one of five finalists in a two-year competition to design a personal flying device that is safe, useful and thrilling.

Advising Team Harmony on gear development, I have enjoyed working with aeronautical engineers Dr. Moble Benedict, David Coleman and the entire 11-person team during the past year.

The competition attracted 854 teams and 3,800 innovators from 103 countries who accepted Boeing’s bold challenge to make people fly. The GoFly prize fosters the development of safe, quiet, ultra-compact, near-vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) personal flying devices capable of flying twenty miles while carrying a single person.

With no team competing in the final fly-off achieving the competition’s stringent requirements, the $1 million grand prize remains unclaimed. With ingenuity on the cusp of innovation, Boeing is considering continuing the contest and extending the time allowed.

Continued good luck to Team Harmony!

Innovative Drive Solutions: 5 important business milestones in its first five years

When I established my business five years ago, I had a bold vision for Innovative Drive Solutions LLC. As a solo mechanical design engineering consultant, IDS is me and I am the business. It’s a reflection of me in what I have done, am doing and will continue to do personally and professionally.

Innovative Drive Solutions LLC celebrates five years keeping your gears turning.

As I reflect on these five years, I am proud of the many things I have accomplished.  Most notably:

• Two of my three patents were issued, one in 2015 and one in 2016.

• I presented a technical paper at the AGMA (American Gear Manufacturers Association) Fall Technical Meeting in 2016 in Philadelphia. At the gear industries’ premiere event, 20 technical papers are chosen each year to be presented over a four-day period by engineers from all over the world.

• I presented a module on gear and gearbox design in 2017 at a week-long Society of Automotive Engineers seminar in Troy, Michigan.

• During 2016/17, I authored Tooth Tips, a monthly technical column in Gear Solutions Magazine. With a circulation of 13,000, the magazine is one of the two main publications serving the engineers and executives in the gear industry.

• I guest lectured at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana twice in a three-week period in the Fall of 2019. For the School of Technology, I gave future mechanical engineers an overview of how to design a complete gearbox/transmission from scratch. For the Krannert School of Business, I taught budding entrepreneurs how to start and maintain a sole member, one-person consulting company like I did.

Here is a partial list of industries I have served and consulted with about gearing and geared drive systems related issues:

Energy (off-shore oil and gas exploration); lift trucks, motorcycles; small kitchen appliances; ZTR lawn mowers; electrification of devices; personal flying machines; on-highway trucks; classic cars; underground coal mining equipment in South Africa; and others.

When you do a Google search using the terms quiet gears, very strong gears, high pressure angle gears, high contact ratio gears, and other related terms, the results would list my publications within the first several hits.

Thanks to my customers for their business and faith in me. Thanks to my suppliers, sub-contractors and others who support me, encourage me, and are helping me along the way. And thanks to my nephew Morgan for designing my website.  

But most of all I thank my lovely wife Monica for her help in marketing, bookkeeping, proofreading, and moral support. I couldn’t have done this without her.

The work has been interesting, challenging and rewarding both personally and professionally. And through it all, I have been able to meet and work with amazing and talented people — some of the best in the industry.

I look forward to continuing this satisfying work in the years ahead.

Reflections on 100 years of gears at Fairfield Manufacturing

Fairfield Manufacturing Corporation, now part of Dana, Inc., just celebrated its 100-year anniversary with an event commemorating this milestone for current and former employees.

Fairfield was founded in 1919 by David Ross, who also founded Ross Gear (now a division of TRW) and Rostone. Ross was a major benefactor of Purdue University (he is the Ross in the Ross-Ade football stadium) and is buried on the Purdue campus. The company remains the largest independent gear and power transmission product manufacturer in North America with around $300 million in annual sales and 1,100 employees.

I was proud to be employed there for almost 37 years; the last 16 of those years as chief engineer. How did I feel about returning to my former employer? I had and have many great memories of this place and time and in some ways, it felt as comfortable as an old shoe and as if I had never left.

I am proud of what I accomplished at Fairfield and for the many fine people I worked with over the years.

The company was founded right after WWI and has endured through wars, the Great Depression, recessions, good and bad economic times including two near bankruptcy experiences, multiple ownership changes, floods and fires. And through it all, it has persevered.

It was a privately-owned company under Ross family ownership from its founding until 1976. The company has been an integral part of the Lafayette community for generations and supplied employment for thousands over the years. It has always been a great place to work and a good corporate citizen. It has trained and provided personnel to many other companies in this and other industries.

Some have asked: In this world of technological improvements and constant change, will the world still need gears in the future? I say yes. Even electric cars have gears and a gearbox as I found out in my consulting work with Tesla Motors in 2014-2015.

I remember in the early days of my career when I was told that gears would someday be made obsolete during my lifetime. I wondered then; What would replace them? Gears and geared devices have changed of course over the years and there is always a lot to know and learn about them. But gears have been around for thousands of years (from about 2600 BC), and I suspect they will be around for awhile longer. So as long as something moves, gears will probably still be involved and needed.

So, cheers to gears and to 100 years of success at Fairfield. I am looking forward to what the next century will bring for Dana-Fairfield and the gear industry.

It’s Not A Mad World Afterall

Recently, MAD Magazine announced it was ceasing the publication of new material; essentially going out of business. This was sad news to me. Like many of my fellow baby boomers, I fondly remember reading Mad magazine during my adolescence and after. I’m sure that this fact and the comic books I also read, bothered my parents, who are now both deceased. But I turned out just fine as an adult despite this.

Photo credit: Norman Mingo, Mad Magazine.

What did MAD magazine teach me about life? That the adult world sometimes doesn’t make sense and is not always logical or easily understandable. Sometimes what we are told by so-called “reputable sources” or “experts” is just plain wrong and false.

I learned to not believe everything you hear and read and to not follow the crowd but do ask questions. Always do your own research, seek out and understand both sides of any important issue and to form your own opinion.

It helps to have a good sense of humor and there are many things in life that are funny, such as MAD Magazine. And humor takes many forms. Sarcasm, satire, parody and irony are just some of the ways the magazine employed to make us laugh and think. There is a time to be serious, but also a time that we can enjoy the humor in life.

Curiously so, MAD’s fictional front man Alfred E. Neuman has a remarkable resemblance to Pete Buttigig, the mayor of my hometown South Bend, Indiana, but with better teeth and more symmetrical facial features. Just the thought of that makes me smile.

Neuman’s motto was “What, me worry?”

Worry not is a great philosophy of life and discovering it early on was foundational in my knowledge and understanding of the concept of mindfulness - to be in and appreciative of the present moment and circumstances.

I’ve learned to not worry about things in life that are unimportant in the overall scheme of things (and there are many of these). I’ve learned to be concerned about, but not worry about the things that are important and deserve my attention, and most importantly, to try to discern the difference.

It is good to have a childlike sense of wonder and awe about the world around us. We all need a spirit of curiosity about all of it and to seek, where possible, to understand it. And in understanding, it’s good to have peace, joy and satisfaction about it all.

So, for 67 consecutive years MAD Magazine has been teaching us to laugh at and find the humor in life and in ourselves; and for that I am glad, not mad.

From Soap Box Derby to the world stage

West Lafayette, Indiana resident and Purdue mechanical engineering student Abby Mills just won the 2019 All-American Soap Box Derby world championship in Akron, Ohio. I am happy for her as she represents the town where I lived for 33 years; the university where I graduated, and the engineering discipline I have spent my adult life working at. Bravo for this outstanding accomplishment.

As a young boy in South Bend, Indiana, I remember when the soap box derby was run there. My best friend Rusty, his brother Tallie, and their father Paul, an engineer that my father worked with, constructed a soap box car that won the local event. They went on to compete in the national event in Akron, Ohio. Rusty and I later scavenged some of the parts of that car to make one of our first powered go-carts. All of this reinforced my native interest in cars, racing and anything that moved under its own power.

Tragically, in 1969 Tallie died in an automobile accident. He survived his military experience during the VietNam War only to be killed stateside in a car.

Although I never raced a soap box car myself, I’m glad that bright young people like Tallie and Abby Mills have done so and continue to do it so well.

The Indianapolis 500 and Me

On the eve of the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500, I have many fond memories of this historic race. I was born into a family that loved auto racing and the “500”. I cannot remember a time when I did not listen to “The Race” on the radio while growing up when that was the only way to experience it for me.

When I became old enough to attend the race itself, I did, starting in 1968. I well remember Mario Andretti winning in 1969. I had a great view from my seat right across from the start/finish line and the pits.

Around that time, I learned about my grandfather Otto Schafer’s involvement in racing and the Indy 500. Starting in the 1940s, he owned and raced a series of Midget, Sprint and Indy 500 type cars. To my surprise, I learned that he entered, qualified and then raced a car that he owned in 1948 Indy 500 race! That car, known as The Schafer Gear Works Special #17, started in the 33rd position (last) and after only 42 laps finished 25th. That was the only time grandpa Otto entered a car in the Indy 500, but he continued to race his other cars.

Top left: My uncles Dick, Ray Haroon and Norm Schafer at the IMS standing in front of a 1954 Corvette.
Bottom left: Grandpa Otto Schafer.
Top right/middle: My first ‘car’ was a Peddle car, followed by my first powered car, a Go-cart, then the first of six corvettes.

As a car owner, he hired some of the best professional drivers of that era to drive for him including Johnnie Parsons, the winner of the 1950 Indianapolis 500. As a very young boy in the ‘60s, I remember meeting many race car drivers at my grandparent’s house.

Grandpa Otto spent many months of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In 1955, he was one of the founding members of The United States Auto Club (USAC), which was the Indy 500 sanctioning body from that time on. And just days before the 1970 race, he died while attending a race-related banquet in Indianapolis.

After his death, the flag hung in my childhood home in South Bend, Indiana and today, a replica of it hangs in my house in Indianapolis (the original is stored elsewhere).

I have always loved cars and racing. More recently, I have driven my Corvette around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track many times, which was always a dream of mine. Thanks go to the Corvette Indy club and its sponsor Roger Penske Chevrolet.

So, I am continuing some of my grandfather’s traditions, in that my first job upon graduating from Purdue University was working at the company he founded in 1934, Schafer Gear Works, which has operated continuously for 85 years.

This is a race flag which my grandfather created in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He had many of the famous drivers of the day sign it including Ray Haroon, the winner of the first Indy 500 in 1911, and all the three-time winners up to that time — Mauri Rose, Wilbur Shaw and Louie Meyer.

My entire career has been in the gear business and I continue to share grandpa Otto’s and uncles Dick and Norman’s love of gears and the Indy 500. I hope that I am making them proud.

Don't make resolutions. Be resolute. The example of Charlie Miller.

My father-in-law, Charles Richard Miller (Yes, my wife Monica was born as and now remains, with me, a Miller) provides an example to me of this principle.

Charlie’s example to me: be resolute, consistent and intentional about the things that are important in life. Always stay true to your values. And it helps to have good values. This applies whether the yearly resolutions are made or not.

New Year’s resolutions are fine, and I have nothing against them, but it is more important and it certainly helps you to successfully achieve them if you are a resolute and consistent person to start with. Any resolutions you make will then be aligned with your values and principles and is an extension of and refinement of them thus making them easier to achieve.

Some background. Charlie at 86 years old grew up in a small town in central Indiana called Belleville. At age 18 and just out of high school, he volunteered, instead of being drafted, for and served in the Korean War in the U.S. Navy on the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea.

After the war, he worked for AT&T in a management role. He retired from the “telephone company” in 1989.

CM / Jan 2019

In retirement, he took up sailing and owned a 30-foot C&C sailboat keeled out for speed and raced it successfully for some years; he was around 60 years old at that time. Remember, he was and is a Navy man.

In the boating years, he identified a problem, cleaning the underside of his sailboat. He figured out a unique, unconventional, yet effective solution. He obtained his scuba diving certification for the sole purpose of this task. He was now able to gain access underneath his boat while it was still in the water and clean it much more effectively than before. So, there he was in the St. Johns River in Jacksonville Florida, with weights on his ankles standing in shallow, murky water scuba gear and all cleaning the underside of his boat. He never used this training for anything else. Task accomplished. As an engineer, I admire that kind of problem-solving ability and unconventional thinking.

An athlete by nature, he raced bicycles and later rode them for exercise and enjoyment all his life. He raced competitively in the masters’ category (age 40 and older) and up until about a year ago, he regularly rode 20 miles or more at a time many days. The sport took Charlie and his wife Janice to the big screen as they appeared in the 1979 Hoosier-based movie Breaking Away in true-to-life roles — he as a racer and she as a cycling race referee.

He doesn’t ride his bike as much today but does walk two to three miles per day.

So, instead of simply making a resolution to be healthy and exercise more, he actually did it for decades. And at an unusually vigorous pace.

A self-professed TV man (he was trained in television repair prior to taking his job with AT&T), he has followed and kept up with the technology from the 1950s tube TVs through today. He currently owns five TVs including the latest model OLED display.

Charlie’s example for me and others: Keep up with new technologies, be flexible and always willing to learn and accept new ideas and new things. Be curious about all things. He currently owns the latest Apple watch, iPhone and a recent iPad, and uses them all.

He can and does speak intelligently with me and many others about many topics: both college and pro sports, cars, TVs and anything electronic, politics and current events and other subjects.  

I don’t know if Charlie ever made any New Year’s resolutions. If he sees something that needs to be done, he just does it. At the time it is needed. Period. No resolution needed. He has led a life of purpose and accomplishment nevertheless. And isn’t that the point? Not bad for a boy from Belleville, Indiana.

Where there's a Will, there's a way

According to his high school football coach, my son Will, a senior wide receiver, has ‘made himself into a football player.’ And that didn’t happen overnight, in a vacuum or in a random manner. Achieving hard-earned goals never do.

Eric Schlene for the Journal & Courier

Starting as a youth football player, Will’s commitment to the sport has been obvious, relentless, and fervent.

And during game three of his high school senior season, my son’s dogged determination to not just achieve, but surpass his training and game-day goals were realized.

Will threw for a 41-yard touchdown pass, rare for a wide receiver, and then a few plays later scored on a 61-yard touchdown run contributing to his team’s 45-21 victory. The stadium announcer said, “What’s he going to do next, kick a field goal?”

Conditioning, training, off-season workouts and just plain hard work, both individually and with the team, were his not-so-secret ingredients to transforming himself into a seemingly overnight senior offensive sensation.

When you believe in yourself, anything is possible.

In sport as it is in life, consistent and persistent effort toward the goal of making yourself the best you can be equals success. For anything worth doing, there is no substitute for hard work, practice, and preparation.

Your toughest competitor is almost always going to be you. In your singular quest to achieve your highest potential, believing you can is half the battle.

A time when Will Power had no willpower

Photo by USA Today

When IndyCar driver Will Power became a first-time Indy 500 Race winner on Sunday, he reacted in a most non ‘Will-like’ manner. The Australian, known for being calm as a kangaroo while amassing his double-digit IndyCar career wins for Team Penske, instantly knew this win was different. This was the race that to date, had eluded him. This was THE Indy 500 that Power had just won, and boy did his joy pour out.

He screamed with excitement over and over. Even though he is lactose intolerant, he gladly drank milk from the winner’s bottle – an Indy 500 tradition – then sprayed it everywhere dousing himself and the 500 Festival queen standing nearby. No apologies needed. Unbridled excitement ruled the moment.  

Power was overcome with emotion in Victory Lane and in doing so, it illustrated just how hard he had worked for that moment. His exuberant reaction showed everyone how important that achievement was to him.  

Sometimes when events go really well and a hard-fought goal is met, some people are caught off-guard and react in unexpected ways.

Have you ever felt that giddy child-like euphoric feeling that comes from accomplishing something great – maybe surprisingly so? What was it like? How did it make you feel? Hopefully, that has happened at least a few times in your life.

For me, I got that feeling every time one of my gearbox designs was assembled in the plant and then installed in a customer’s machine. Knowing the customer was satisfied with my design always got me charged up.  And when the US Patent Office notified me not once, but three times that each of my patents was approved and issued, I was animated. For a gearhead like me, that’s saying a lot.

We all can’t win the Indy 500, or a gold medal at the Olympics, but we all can achieve an important and valued goal and capture some of that feeling.

Education: The gift that keeps on giving

As my alma mater’s basketball team, the Purdue Boilermakers, prepares itself for what I hope will be a deep run in the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, I’m reminded of how my Purdue mechanical engineering education set in motion my profound thirst for knowledge.

Throughout my engineering career, I’ve never stopped learning. Whether it be a technical conference or webinar, researching and authoring a technical paper or taking a deep dive into a colleague’s publication, I am intentional in seeking out knowledge to better me personally and professionally. And you should too.

Purdue University president Mitch Daniels said, “Every successful enterprise has a very clear strategic purpose.” My personal strategy, one that has served me and my consulting business well, is to be curious and to never stop learning. 

Celebrating National Engineers Week

It’s National Engineers Week (Feb. 18-24) which gives me the chance to reflect on the opportunity I’m afforded to work with so many talented fellow engineers.

Photo by Gazette Review 2018

As vice chairman of AGMA’s vehicle gearing committee, it’s cool when great minds come together to talk shop while crafting industry standards.  And in my daily consulting work, I get to help my clients, leading-edge manufacturers in the United States and around the world, with gear and gearbox design and analysis. Finding innovative solutions for my clients never gets old. 

So, this week, and as I did last year, I applaud the talented professionals I’m lucky to work with ― engineers who contribute to society in so many ways.