Arnold Beckman opitimizes the American dream
a scientist who rose to success in education in business and is one of the nation's top
philanthropists.
His inventions have helped scientists the world
over save and help millions of lives.
Arnold Orville Beckman was born in 1900 in the small farming town of Collum,
Illinois, the son of a blacksmith.
A book he discovered in the dusty family attic started his interest in science
as a nine-year-old boy, he read Steeles- Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry.
During his high school days, in Normal, Illinois, Arnold Beckman made his first visits to the
University of Illinois
where a teacher had encouraged him to use some electronic photography equipment.
Arnold Beckman set his studies aside during World War I and join the U.S. Marines.
While on base, in Brooklyn, he met a young woman
named Mable would become his wife.
They were married in 1925.
He received his Bachelors Degree from the University of Illinois in chemical engineering
in 1922
and a Masters in physical chemistry the following year.
Arnold Beckman then headed west to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena for his
doctoral studies.
His constant search for solutions led him to become an inventor.
"Classmate of mine from the University of Illinois
at the time was working out of the California food-growers exchange
and he had to measure the acidity of lemon juice
that had been heavily dosed with sulfur dioxide.
Arnold Beckman solved the problem with the invention
of the first ph meter,
a device that sparked an industry
and with that he left Caltech to enter the corporate world of research instrumentation.
By now, components of his ph meter were being used in a wide variety of other instruments
including the spectro photometer, which opened a new era of analyzing organic material.
In the 1940s, a small part in a Beckman ph meter led to production of the
NTL Helipot
The Helipot became an intregal componentin a
then the secret device called radar.
Only a few years later, Beckman began manufacturing in oxygen analyzer, the Navy put them on its
submarines.
But, the analyzers real life saving use came in the nursery where some premature babies
were going blind due to a poor oxygen mix.
That application created a worldwide boom for the company now called Beckman Coulter.
The company continued to grow in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s
into the areas of biotechnology and medicine.
The company and its founder were a huge success.
The business made Arnold and Mabel Beckman a wealthy couple.
Then, in his eighties Arnold Beckman sold the
company and decided to invest in future researchers
with the creation of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.
"I thought here this money was
accumulated
by selling instruments to scientists.
Let's give the money back to scientists.
That's where it came from, they should have priority.
In the middle 1980s, the foundation granted mega gifts.
One of the first built the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois,
Doctor Beckman's Alma Mater.
"I recognized a need for facilities
and these various things, I was thinking
Let's put a
facility up there
to be useful for everybody
to serve for many years to come
So it'll carry out my
desire to have whatever I'm doing
the benefits would be stemmed from here and to
the future.
There would be other institutes
at Caltech,
at Cal Urvine,
the City of Hope Institute near Los Angeles,
and at Stanford.
All told, Dr. and Mrs. Beckman have contributed more than 350 million dollars
to the advancement of research and education,
ranking them among the greatest philantrhopists of all time.
Well, I hope that the institutes will be carrying on
what I wished to have carried on in the field of research.
It's a very good mechanism for implementing this.
Mabel Beckman passed away in 1989
ending a magical 64 year marriage.
"She shared with me
all my life
and she was
entitled to as much
recognition as
Arnold Beckman was.
The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation hopes to find and encourage the future Arnold Beckmans
of the world.
The Beckman at Science Program reaches to the youngest scientist.
It is designed to encourage those still in grade school.
Today, it is hard to imagine what life would be like without the inventions of Arnold Beckman.
Devices which make the food supply safer,
new technologies in medicine in laboratory science,
and the radar component that makes today's sophisticated flight systems,
his ph meter is ranked as one of the top inventions of the twentieth century,
but Arnold Beckman's greatest gifts to the world
may be his rules for life.
The most important virtue of all is integrity.
If we don't have integrity
or others,
virtues become meaningless
because
you won't know which one to believe.
If what you're doing
if you're not enthusiastic about it
you ought to change it
because you live only once.
and if you're smart, you'll make everday of that
filled with as much enthusiasm as possible.
Arnold Beckman is an American icon who has proven
to the world,
there is no satisfactory substitute for excellence.