The Penalty Of Leadership

I have a confession to make. People say I am a little eccentric in my thinking, and that is likely true. But I am a product of my youth and hanging out in all of the old automotive repair garages and car dealerships may have warped my young mind. Early on... I learned to figure out exactly how a part functions and to pay little or no attention to it's assigned application. More important was how the part functioned and what it was capable of and not the application the part was built for. Let me explain...

When I was about 14 years young, I learned from an old time mechanic (who lived and worked thru the depression) that is was more important to truly understood the function of a part and how it worked, over what the original application was. He drilled that idea into my young brain and unlike many other things, it stuck.

One of my first lessons occurred in his shop. He sent me over to sharpen a drill bit after casually explaining that two hexagon nuts held together will give you the correct angle to sharpen a drill bit within a couple of degrees. That explained the two 5/8 nuts sitting beside the bench grinder.) So I go over to his bench grinder and I can't find the switch to turn it on. "Look on the floor he says...see the dimmer switch inside that electrical box...step on it!" I did and the grinder took off. Who would have thought...?

I knew that this would result in yet another lesson. It did... but it was a good one about how an automotive floor dimmer switch worked and that there were two switches, one for High Beam and one for Low Beam and if one side burns out, the other side is usually still good.

So he used the good side of the dimmer switch to turn on his grinder, so if his hands were full he could still easily turn the grinder off an on! So simple and brilliant but I would have never figured that out on my own and looking back I had thrown out plenty of dimmer switches that had one side burnt out from my old Chevy pickups. I just did what everyone else did... and threw them out when one side quit working.

I got many more lessons from him during my younger years and all my lessons were all like that, he made it seem so obvious that eventually I began to think like he did, on my own.

That came in handy when I began to work on building a 6-volt alternator.  I had experienced enough hard starting, yellowish dim headlights and dead batteries to last a lifetime. Due in part to my early education I knew how a generator charging system worked, that a generator did not charge at idle and low rpm, which was the reason for the dim headlights, hard starting, and dead batteries.
I learned that I needed to drive ten miles at highway speeds in order to give a generator charging system enough time to recharge the battery from one start.

In contrast... I knew that an alternator did charge at idle and low rpm, and that is why the lights were always bright, there was no hard starting or dead batteries with modern alternator charging systems.

So that is why it made perfect sense to me, to apply modern technology in reverse to fix a 6-volt electrical system.

All of the experts and engineer types I talked with, said I was crazy and to stop waisting my time and theirs. But I knew that if I could build an alternator for a 6-volt electrical system that worked as good as it did on a 12-volt system, my life and everyone else who owned a 6-volt vehicle, would have a much better life. It took about two years to figure it all out and to make my alternators manufacturing friendly. But I knew I was on the right track. There was no doubt in my mind!

Because there was no such thing as a 6-volt alternator before I came along I had two strikes against me as I began offering my 6-volt alternators for sale. First off, there was no such thing as a 6-volt alternator, till I came along, and second, the only proof I had that my 6-volt alternator actually worked... was that it worked on my 1951 Chevy Pickup.

So that is when I got involved with the Great Race. I needed some way to advertise my 6-volt alternators and I figured seeing is believing. I knew if my alternators worked in the Great Race application they would work on any other 6-volt vehicle application.

They did... and I got free advertising all across the county as antique car owners talked to the Great Race entrants who were only to happy to explain how my 6-volt alternator fixed their electrical problems. That is how I found Howard Sharp of Fairport New York which I still sponsor today, some 30 years later! Howard is my best spokesman and salesman. His three Great Race first place finishes give him plenty of credibility.

Meanwhile...despite the help from the Great Race, I truly felt like the odd man out for the first five years of selling my 6-volt alternators. I knew they worked, The Great Race teams proved they worked, and they had been featured in numerous car magazines but still it was an odd concept. It took a few more years before antique vehicle owners finally "got it."

Meanwhile...the Great Racers came back to me and said..." you did such a great job fixing our electrical issues, why don't you work on our cooling and fuel issues?" I accepted the challenge, figuring it had to be easier than the electrical.

It wasn't... but I figured out a solution to both the cooling and the fuel system issues, I knew exactly what the problems were... because I had witnessed them first hand, and I knew how to find a solution. I now manufacture over 40 specialized products to make all types of antique vehicles more reliable and fun to drive.

Today... thirty years later I am still involved in the Great Race, and still learning. I now have my 6-volt alternators in 23 foreign countries besides the United States and Canada. I remember how happy I was when I sold my first 6-volt alternator to a customer in Oklahoma...across the state line. I only sold about 40 alternators my first year, all in the state of Kansas, with that one exception. I thought I was finally on my way.  Now some 30 years and more than ten thousand 6-volt alternators later, my 6-volt alternators are recognized around the world.

Right after I got my 6-volt alternator done and into production, I found this advertisement from General Motors Cadillac division dated 1915. It kind of put things in perspective.

The Penalty of Leadership
In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. 

The reward is widespread recognition, the punishment fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. 

If his work is merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone. If he achieves a masterpiece it will set a million tongues wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a common-place painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build; no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius.

Long after a great work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. 

The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The Leader is assailed because he is a Leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy, but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. 

There is nothing new in this, it is as old as the world and as old as the human passions of envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains the leader. Master Poet, Master Painter, Master Workman; each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live, Lives. ©Copyright 1915 Cadillac Motor Division.

In the end the goal that I set for myself when I was twenty, had finally been reached. My goal was to learn how to make all types of antique vehicles more reliable and fun to drive. What I have learned preparing cars entered in the Great Race every year for thirty years, has taught me just that, and what I learned, I have applied to all types of antique vehicles to make them more reliable and fun to drive.



Bud Melby was my first Great Race customer in 1989, and became a good friend and mentor to me. He often said... "your legacy is the only thing you will leave behind, and you will be remembered not for how much money you had, or how big of a house you lived in, or how many antique cars you collected. Your legacy will be what you did to make the world a better place.

You legacy is built on the fact that you invented something, designed something, or improved something, that had a positive impact and benefit to the people who bought and used what you have created. Bud said..." your 6-volt alternators are an example of that... you improved the electrical system of my 1936 Cord making it more reliable and fun to drive. You changed the whole personality of that car for the better. I was not prepared for that much of an improvement from your 6-volt alternator. You exceeded my expectations. That will be your legacy with me, and everyone else that buys one of your alternators..."

 I confess, I did not understand all of that legacy business when I was in my twenties, but now forty years later... it has become crystal clear. Thanks Bud!