INVENTORS HALL OF FAME
Greatbatch
Patent No. 3,057,356 Medical Cardiac Pacemaker
Wilson Greatbatch was born in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1919. After receiving his preliminary education at public schools in West Seneca, New York, he entered military service and served in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters during World War II. He was honorably discharged with the rating of Aviation Chief radioman in 1945. Following the war, he attended Cornell University and was graduated with a BEE degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950.
He received a master's degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1957 and was awarded honorary doctors's degrees from Houghton College in 1970 and the University at Buffalo in 1984.
Although trained as an electrical engineer, his research has been primarily in interdisciplinary areas combining engineering with medical electronics, agricultural genetics, the electrochemistry of pacemaker batteries, and the electro chemical polarization of physiological electrodes. His original pacemaker patent resulted in the first implantable cardiac pacemaker which was licensed to the Medtronic Company, as were a number of subsequent patents for advanced pacemakers and pacemaker power sources. With the advent of this invention, patient survival has become comparable to that of a healthy population of similar age.
He has been honored by the National Society of Professional Engineers and in 1983, the pacemaker was chosen by them as one of the two major engineering contributions to society during the last fifty years. Greatbatch also received the William J. Morelock award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1968 and a "Centennial Medal" in 1984 for his pacemaker work. In 1975, he was honored as "Inventor of the Year" by the Niagara Frontier Patent Law Association.
Greatbatch is the author of one book and more than 100 book chapters and technical papers. He has established a series of companies to manufacture or license his inventions. Greatbatch Enterprises presently employs 350 people and manufactures most of the world's pacemaker batteries.
The above information was supplied by the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc., Room 1D01-Crystal Plaza 3, 2021 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia 22202. Videotapes and printed materials are currently available. For more information, visit the Foundation's web site at http://www.invent.org
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