Wizard of the Outer Lab: Adventures and Inventions of a Boy Who Would Never Amount to a Hill of Beans

Self educated, a boy grows up having a brilliant knowledge in electronics whose inventions contribute measurably to mankind and in the process, he becomes a successful man while enjoying life.

Harry Sampey cracks technological problems the way other people crack eggs. A successful entrepreneur and inventor with over forty patents to his credit, Sampey is a self-taught electronics engineer, businessman, and philanthropist. His beginnings were storybook: he grew up in poverty in the small Pennsylvania town of Perryopolis during the depression. Roaming the countryside, Sampey developed a sense of exploration and curiosity about how things worked, especially electronic things. He is a high school dropout who later in life earned a doctorate in electronic engineering. As a young man, he joined the U.S. Air Force to help support his family. After a career of six and a half years, he entered civilian life and ended up out west with a new invention that provided television to small communities. He moved on to Cape Canaveral as a member of the Vanguard rocket lunch team to put America's first satellite into orbit. Working as an electrical engineer under a NASA contract, he was given the NASA Space Science Award for co-design of the lunar geophysics survey camera. Over the following years, with many more inventions, he turned his attention to business, building Nu-Metrics, a global company known for its road measuring instruments using proprietary technology in gauging distance, reading road conditions, and monitoring highway traffic. But business pulled him away from his first love-doing research. He didn't want to retire either. You retire, you die, he says. Among his philanthropies, he funded development of a community park in Perryopolis that bears his name. The townspeople use it to stage many events and an annual festival called Pioneer Days. His work philosophy is simple. You have to do whatever you like doing the best. If you like what you're doing, then you'll be the best. Always known as a lab rat, he set himself up in an Outer Lab Research Center; a combination of a fishing lodge and laboratory that is