Tom Still: History of Wisconsin innovation offers glimpse into the future

There was a century-old management panel from a building-wide temperature regulation system manufactured by the “Johnson Service Co.” of Milwaukee, now Johnson Controls Inc., one in every of Wisconsin’s most iconic corporations.

The primary adjustable-volume micropipette, which revolutionized the method of measuring and transferring organic fluids, was close by. When paired with a “respirometer,” which measured small quantities of oxygen, the gadgets sped analysis in molecular biology within the mid-Twentieth century. Each had been developed by Gilson Medical Electronics of Middleton, based by UW-Madison scientist Warren Gilson.

A bottle of “Dairyland Rat and Mouse Killer” from the Nineteen Fifties rested on the desk, a reminder of the analysis completed by Karl Paul Hyperlink, the UW-Madison professor who found {that a} substance to kill rodents is also refined to forestall life-threatening blood clots and strokes in individuals.

The show at this month’s Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium additionally included: a “sonic sifter” from Milwaukee’s Allen-Bradley Co. used for, amongst many different issues, analyzing moon mud; the primary high-fidelity stereophones from Milwaukee’s Koss Electronics Inc.; an electrical mixer developed by Racine’s Chester Seaside (suppose Hamilton Seaside) utilizing a fractional horsepower motor that powered the small equipment trade; and extra.

They’re consultant of a a lot bigger Wisconsin Historic Society assortment that can emerge from managed storage to public show as a “historical past middle” is constructed on Madison’s Capitol Sq.. The constructing will rise partly on the positioning of the present museum and embody two adjoining properties. Present exhibition house will double when it opens in 2024; about $100 million has been secured and a minimum of $20 million extra is required.

Historic Society director Christian Overland is planning an “innovation expertise space” within the new constructing, which stems from his background as a expertise historian and former govt vice chairman of The Henry Ford, a nationwide landmark vacation spot of 5 sights in Dearborn, Mich.

Like most museums, the brand new historical past middle will rotate its collections, which implies totally different tech-related artifacts could also be on show at totally different occasions. There are actually a whole bunch of them, lots of that are being saved till the constructing is full.

It’s much less about particular person gadgets, nonetheless, than celebrating Wisconsin’s tech and enterprise legacy constructed by actual individuals with actual names.

Along with individuals comparable to Whitewater’s Warren S. Johnson, Gilson, Hyperlink, John Koss, Stanton Allen and Lynde Bradley (the corporate is in the present day’s Rockwell Automation) and Seaside, there are lots of others whose names are reminders of an earlier entrepreneurial age.

William Harley and three Davidsons — Arthur, Walter and William — constructed an honest little motorbike enterprise. Seymour Cray of Chippewa Falls has been referred to as “the Thomas Edison of the super-computing trade” for his groundbreaking work. Arthur Oliver Smith developed the primary metal vehicle body. John Michael Kohler manufactured the primary enameled, cast-iron plumbing fixtures. Ole Evinrude designed the primary commercially profitable outboard gasoline engine for boats.

The newest technology of innovators and entrepreneurs can also be leaving a mark in Wisconsin and properly past. They embody individuals comparable to:

• Diane Hendricks of ABC Provide in Beloit, who Forbes declared to be “probably the most profitable feminine entrepreneur in American historical past.”
• Epic’s Judy Faulkner, a dominating pioneer in digital well being data. The Historic Society has the pc she used to jot down Epic’s first strains of code
• Developmental biologist James Thomson, a world-renowned stem-cell researcher
• Invoice Linton, the founding father of Promega, one in every of Wisconsin’s earliest profitable biotech corporations.
• Thomas “Rock” Mackie and Paul Reckwerdt, builders of the image-guided radiation remedy course of often called “tomotherapy”
• Craig Culver, whose household eating places redefined how hamburgers ought to style
• Richard Burke and Bevel Hogg of Trek Bicycles, founders of the Waterloo firm that makes among the world’s hottest bikes
• Robert D. Kern, a mechanical engineer who within the mid-Nineteen Fifties began an organization in a storage making moveable backup energy mills. That homegrown agency turned Generac, the worldwide chief. Kern died in November at 96.

These and plenty of extra up to date names mark a continuation of an entrepreneurial spirit in Wisconsin that was born earlier than statehood. Possibly the Historic Society may use an excellent larger museum.