An Inventors Story (all true, one inventor)

Can one be a good inventor and help people but not make money?

In my case this is true. I have invented products that have helped people and been part of inventing things that have done a significant amount of good but my name is not known and I have never been able to make much money. I started with my first idea when I was four years old and helped several people then (hard to believe but true) and I was honored that Paul Newman even wrote about me and my first project at four in his autobiographical work, Newmans Own Guide to a Good Life (pgs. 75-76). This is a story that I believe is true of many “starving” inventors going back to truly great ones like Nikola Tesla. Some of course like Elon Musk have helped the world AND made money. I will tell my story here a little at a time as that is all X will allow and invite everyone else to send me your stories to www.goodnewsdaily.com.

Let me begin in the middle of my 67 years. I invented and patented a system to stop Child Abduction in 1996. It seems whenever something bothers me and I can’t sleep (most of my adult life I have only slept 2-4 hours a night) I can usually come up with a solution. Typically an “outside of the box” solution. I am not an engineer, even though I took solar engineering and aerospace engineering in college I never graduated. I had to stop to take care of my two very small children, single male parent style and worked two eight hour a day jobs for a while but that is another story.

This project started because I was living in Hawaii and my Son, only 4 years old went missing on Hapuna Beach in Hawaii. He was there, without hardly anyone on the beach, playing with two older sisters and a younger one right beside me…and then he was gone. It became the longest 10 minutes of my life with all of us screaming and looking…and then he was there. He had gone into a cave right behind us 20 feet! It was a small cave in the rocks on Hapuna beach before the Hapuna Hotel was built. It scared me and I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about it. The next day, strange as it may sound, I received a letter (advertisement) from,”The Alliance for Lost and Missing Children.” It said that “one child is abducted in the United States every twenty four hours by a non-family member.” This hurt me and I could not sleep for days thinking about it and possible ways to help stop that from happening. In 1996 my patent for “The Child Safe Alarm” was awarded. It was the first “electronic leash” for children and as it turned out diplomats children worldwide.

I was in the news, both television and in print and even on National News as MSNBC flew me and my son to their New York Headquarters to film a segment. Now I know what you are thinking…You must have made good money on this? Actually no, never made any money whatsoever on it! It was never allowed into the public as it was “appropriated” by U.S. Intelligence. You see it was ahead of its time then. The story will continue.. and with it came my invention of the “Ecopals,” a group of seven Environment Educational characters, next on the long list to try to help the world in some way.

2^nd Episode: An Inventor’s Story

Let’s backup to the first good I did as an inventor when I was four (in Paul Newman’s, Newman’s Own Guide to a Good Life).

It was 1960. My Father was putting himself through college with my Mother’s help.  She was working all day babysitting 5 children from our neighborhood plus me and my sister and pregnant with my brother while also working as a waitress at night at a 24 hour restaurant. When she got up in the morning she noticed the curtain was caught in the back door there in the housing projects in Seattle.  A thief had come in the night and stolen her purse.  It had $12 in it…her entire grocery budget for the week. She cried and cried…and cried. I was four and “it hurt me…badly.”  I didn’t really know what “money” was but spent several sleepless nights worrying about her and wondering how I could help. Then I saw the woman next door pour out a small bag of black dirt onto her plants…I saw the bag and it said, “10 cents.” The lightbulb went off in my four year old brain as I knew where some dirt was exactly like that. Up in the forest (almost primeval) behind the housing project and down under a mat of leaves probably decades old there was black dirt.  I convinced her that if I could bring her twice as much that she would pay me 10 cents at a time.  I spent hours up there and finally “invented” a way to do it.  I used a screen I found abandoned and created a process to screen out all of the rocks and give her perfect black dirt…a full large tin bucket it took me more than an hour just to lug all the way down.  She gave me a dime and I was ecstatic!  I ran home covered in dirt and gave it to my Mom with, “MOM, MOM I made you MONEY!  You don’t have to cry anymore! I can make more everyday now Mom!!”

As my Mom would tell it within a few weeks I had three kids digging and selling and I was getting a penny from each bucket using my system.  We bought more screen at the five and dime and expanded.  Soon we were supplying even the houses several blocks away.  This set me on a path that would lead virtually my entire life.  Something would “bother me” and I would try to fix it with an invention.  Problem is that this, was one of the only times I ever made money doing it. As I said I have done some good in our world as an inventor but was never able to capitalize much in a monetary fashion.

Goodnewsdaily.com in a later episode is one of those as well.  Twenty seven years now my wife and I have been sending good news out across the world and have gotten many, many accolades about how we’ve helped…once an entire U.S. Aircraft Carrier!  We decided at the beginning not to have ads as this would dampen anyone’s experience.  We only wanted to start, everyday if we could, a “Butterfly Effect” of good news and so once again have done some good with an idea but never been able to capitalize it. We recently added a “three ways to help” at the top so that perhaps we could do more in the way of promotion so more people would feel good…at least for a moment, but so far nothing. It is ok though, we will continue as long as we are able no matter what. Take a look at the “about us” at the top and you will see how it all started.   In each “episode” I will start to take you through inventions that helped, sometimes great numbers of people, but did not make any money or very little for myself and my family. I was never good at capitalizing.

3^rd Episode An Inventor’s Story

In 2004 I helped my nephew with the invention of what would become “Authenticol Systems, Inc.” and was listed on the patent which we filed in 2005. This product was a system to stop online banking fraud and create personal identity security. In 2007 we were brought into FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. and showed the system to the then Head of Cyber-Security for the FBI and several members of other “unnamed” intelligence agencies. President George Bush Jr. would, under a Presidential Directive within the FFEIC, within a few months, mandate our system (or any like system, however there were none), “within all U.S. banking groups by 2008.” We had meetings with the Head of Cyber-Security at Chase and top people at Citibank. We also presented the system to Mastercard/VISA and AMEX as well as the largest credit reporting system at the time. We met with Lehman Brothers in NY and several other brokerage groups.  We sent the system to American Airlines, United and TSA.

The system, once fully enacted could have stopped, we believe over 99% of all U.S. banking fraud and theft at the time tens of billions of dollars yearly and would have cost the companies a tiny fraction of that. EDS (Electronic Data Systems), the huge Ross Perot built firm, sent out a team of Risk Management people and then brought us in to Texas. As we walked the long hallways in the huge Plano campus each computer system in each office lit up with our company name (Authenticol Systems) and logo. We met with the CEO and several top members of one of the world’s largest online banking payment systems there at EDS as well as other interested parties.  We were shown around the several stories deep cyber-center (with an invisible moat around it) and created a deal with them whereby they would hold the data necessary and route the systems globally.  Again, I was on television and in the newspaper. One in Denver, over half a page with my picture as CEO and “Cash Cow” written large across the top.

One would think with a plan as sophisticated and game-changing as ours at the time that we would have made a fortune. Instead, the heads of Chase told us they “lose over $50 million per month to online banking fraud and Citibank over $100 million.”  Further that “they will not take a chance to lose customers by utilizing a system that may put some people off.” “Instead they take the losses as a cost of doing business.”  This was told to us in similar words by many of the nations largest companies. Not a single bank complied with the Presidential Directive. 

Our system was adopted in part by virtually every major concern over the next 17 years or so…and didn’t pay us anything as our patent was slowed to a crawl by the patent office.  Our attorney said at time, “there is something fishy going on” but we didn’t have the money to fight it so it didn’t matter what.  We did send letters of cease and desist or make us a “reasonable” deal to MasterPass and a couple of others but they never responded.

It was a multi-factor system of security that was nearly impenetrable at the time. Several layers of security, optional each to the user, was used from the three primary types of security.  They are: What you are; like your biometric signatures, fingerprints, etc., What you know; like your password and your Mother’s maiden name and what you have; like your computer, phone, credit card etc.  Then you simply take as much or as little as you want depending upon your needs.  You could use a fingerprint (like on the back of some phones now) coupled with a call back or email with a code to enter or up the security to use more like the time of day where you are or voiceprint etc. In the case of the airlines it was a pre-screened ability to pass security quickly such as “Clear” or TSA “Pre-Check is today. All of this in the original patents filed and our original business plan previous to big companies and big money using these things.

The Government, U.S. Intelligence, Banks, Brokerages, Trading Platforms, Airlines and more, after our naivety in showing them, in our opinion, simply took the system and used parts of it and never paid us a dime. It has now helped security and Americans across the country without them even knowing who the “little” inventors were that sent in the first patents and spent everything they had trying to again..help. I coined a phrase that has been quoted in some articles, “do something good while making money,” however once again we did something good, something that most likely saved hundreds of billions of dollars from ending up in the hands of bad actors both organized and state but will never “make us money.”  We worked very, very hard and did help. Americans and perhaps many other countries’ people are now safer because of what we did. Ask yourself the next time you get a code via text or log into your bank account with two or more factors, or rush through an airport line..where did those ideas come from and did the original “inventors,” the idea guys…ever get paid?

4^th Episode An Inventor’s Story (helped save some kids with cancer)

In 1987, I was part of a team that developed a system to stop exploratory surgery.  In particular for children with cancer needed prosthetic hip joints etc. We were the first to take cat-scan and MRI data, stack it up in a three dimensional image on a Silicon Graphics computer.  Back then M.D’s had to look at hard copy plastic sheets and measure and try to determine exact sizes for prosthetics etc. Once we got the first looks at the three dimensional images they were amazing and we then “colorized” them according to density and intensity.  This was a major leap forward and allowed us to pinpoint (for the first time) cancer cells down to the size of the point of a pin.

Once a complete system was developed several systems were donated hospitals in the area and in particular to the Scottish Rites Hospital for Children in Dallas where we frequented with offices not far away. I personally was extremely hurt by the many children with cancer who were on their third or fourth surgeries for hip replacements as were not measured perfectly etc. It was extremely sad and hurt me deep down for months. Our system once complete however did help many. 

In 1988 the CEO and Founder of the company decided to raise money through investors.  I too worked hard on this aspect as we were all taken by the children and wanted to get as much technology developed and into the systems and then to get the systems out to as many hospitals as we could. This then is where it becomes dicey. I have seen this many, many times in business.  Greed, not only for money but also with nearly a fanatical need to help children in this case.  When ALL becomes right to further the end goal then bad things will usually happen. In my experience this “phenomenon” happens in many walks of life.  From people thinking that their service or product is best because it does good and therefore justifies “anything” all the way to terrorists who believe so emphatically in their story that they are willing to kill and maim with clear conscience because “the end justifies the means.”  For me fanaticism is NEVER good.  It inevitably leads somewhere bad.

We met with top brass at Mitsui Corporation from Japan as well as Sumitomo and then Siemens and several others.  Everyone was excited about the new system and its capabilities. It should have made a fortune yes?  Once again it is not always true that the inventors make money no matter how good the product and even when it has done significant good already.

A group was brought in that was a retirement fund for several large groups.  We were going to sell then 1,000,000 shares of the company for $6,000,000. A huge coup for us allowing funding for many systems and building a strong value to sell to the eventual large company buyers. I owned 10%.  The night before they came in for the final closing the CEO called me and said he had decided to split the stock so that essentially, because they were so taken by our system, they would just sign and end up with half of the amount they had originally thought but since everything was verbal until then, he believed they would never know.  This then, he said would allow us to sell an equal amount to another interested group the same way and thereby double our stock sales while keeping a significant amount for us, for the sale to Mitsui. He told me I needed to sign the stock split that night and fax it back to him.

I was young, had a young family with small children and a mortgage on my very first home that we were having trouble keeping up with but surviving.  I NEEDED that money and that deal to work.  It could have changed the trajectory of my entire life and I would have been extremely well off by 34 years old…but I said no. He said he was going to do it anyway and that at tomorrows meeting I would sign or else. I went to the meeting and with about 20 people in the room I stood up and told them that he was cheating them.  I was fired.

Further, the system sold several months later to one of the Japanese conglomerates who then licensed Siemens and others. The CEO made his fortune and never gave me a dime.  The old “just sue me,” but I was not capable at the time as was trying hard to keep my mortgage..which I eventually lost.

The system did a lot of good though and helped many people and many, many children.  It went on to change that entire industry and did virtually end the need for “exploratory surgery.”  I however, never made a dime.  Seems the story of my life as inventions and ideas I have something to do with do help but while my conscience is clear, my pockets have remained empty to this day. I am 67 now and still do not have a home I can call my own.  I keep trying though and perhaps someday…more of my personal stories to come.

An Inventor’s Story #5 (goodnewsdaily.com)

Early in 1995 I was walking on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado and now and again placing quarters in parking meters that had run out.  A woman walked out of a building and immediately said to me “You just put your money in the wrong parking meter!”  I replied, “No I didn’t and kept walking.”  She followed strongly with “Yes you did, that is my car there and you just put your money in my meter.”  I said “yes, I did not want you to get a ticket and your meter had run out.”  She then quizzically said, “Do I know you?”  I replied that she did not and watched her expression change from quizzical to amazed and back again quickly as she questioned further, “So you put money in someone’s parking meter that has run out so that they don’t get a ticket and you do not know them and just then walk away?”  I said, “yes.”  The woman thought for a second and then she said something that has now changed many things for me, “Oh my God, I love that!  I am going to find something nice to do for someone that I don’t know today and everyday from now on!  I love this!”

That is when I decided that my random acts did not end with the act itself but could perpetuate other acts and others beyond them and create a “Butterfly Effect” perhaps lightening the day of many people.  The old adage that, “a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and creates a typhoon halfway around the world,” is what I was thinking about.

As an inventor and serial entrepreneur I couldn’t get this incepted thought out of my head and spent several sleepless nights trying to figure out a way to create a “Butterfly Effect” that could perhaps influence many people at once and have a longer lasting positive effect. As I was reading the newspaper one day I noticed that virtually all of the stories were negative and realized that those stories must be having the opposite effect  on millions of people daily from what I hoped to create.  I thought there must be hundreds of untold stories out there about good things happening the world over that simply were not being told.  This was the light bulb in my mind moment and the seed for the idea of serving up an alternative to the daily inundations of bad news with our own newspaper…Good News Daily.

Through life’s normal trials and tribulations my wife and I have kept it going as a labor of love since that time.  Working on it in the wee hours and whenever we have a spare moment for over twenty seven years now.  Our hope is to bring a smile to someone’s face and that they too might bring a little cheer to someone else and help us to create the “Butterfly Effect” again and again.

We have received countless letters from people who have benefited from GoodNewsDaily.com as well as those simply excited about what we are doing.

Our mission is to provide a positive alternative to the overwhelming inundation of negative news pervading our planet and in so doing begin a daily “Butterfly Effect” with each reader that in turn has a little hand in making our world better for all.

We have never advertised as we did not want to dampen the good effect our stories have on people.   We did begin an area where people could donate in early 2023 at the top under “get involved” but we understand that people are busy with their lives and most do not have much as well. We hope to continue helping just a little in our way everyday for as long as we are able.

We are asking all who read our little newspaper to be on the lookout for good stories and send them in and tell everyone you can!

An Inventor’s Story #6 (the godseye app)

In 2014, I invented a way I thought could help “begin the end of violent crime,” and called it “godseye.” The basic idea was to use smartphones to stop crimes before they started by publishing “instant” video through the use of an emergency button.  This video would also with the godseye technology, capture and transmit biometric data of the would be attacker(s) instantly using facial recognition and other advanced technology such as “at a distance” retinal scan.  This data would be instantly transmitted to the closest “law enforcement” officers, family members and friends as well as 911 emergency.  “Run now! You’re on godseye!,” was meant to become a serious deterrent to crime. Secondarily, the facial recognition and other captured biometric data was to be put through the Nation’s largest biometric intelligence identification technology group, along with their massive capability to vet data through their own proprietary database.  This then would alert law enforcement and first responders instantly about who and where the perpetrators were in real time.

On 8/26/2016 we sent a letter and complete package to Tim Cook, then CEO of Apple, asking to talk about a possible partnership with Apple to help stop violent crimes using our app and the then IPhone 7. It was never answered. We also sent packages and business plans to a number of Venture Capital Firms and via email to hundreds of potential investors…nothing. We also took it to the U.S. Government.

After years of R&D and global beta testing, on March 1, 2018, we launched our ultra-high technology native version (both Android and IOS) and believed this date would be remembered as the ‘beginning of the end’ of violent crime worldwide.  My wife and I put every penny we had into the development and could only “hope” at this point that it took off as we were completely out of money. We sent the story into a number of newspapers including the Denver Post where we were, hoping to get some free publicity about a new public service that truly helped people but did not. 

A few people signed up and began using it and we did receive some good stories about people we had helped from as far away as Japan and Alaska however it did not “take off” as we had hoped and we quickly ran out of money to keep the system turned on.  It was a good idea but one who’s time had not yet come…once again I was ahead of the curve and lost everything. You have to have an invention who’s time has come, not before, not after but exactly at the right time…either that or, has been proven to me over and over again, you have to have money.    

A few days ago (September 18, 2023), I read that a new “app” had been started called “Protect” which purports to help stop violent crime and abductions by means of an emergency button connecting an instant video to police and first responders as well as family and friends. I hope they do well as it is a good idea that will and has helped people….

Here is my original landing page from 2016.

More coming soon….