Sunday, October 21, 2001
40 Ingenuity
Corpus Christi has been home to the inventors of Teflon, the automatic sliding glass door and - Slikk-Gate.
Some of the inventions are better known than others. Teflon made it into the homes of millions. The automatic sliding glass door ended up in almost every sizeable store. A hand-held tamale spreader is spreading across Mexico and the United States. The Slikk-Gate still hasn't gone into production, but its potential market is huge - pickup truck drivers.
Automatic door
Inventors: Lew Hewitt, Dee Horton
Patented: 1964, but idea came to them 10 years earlier
Why: They were always fixing glass doors shattered by the Corpus Christi winds.
Tamale spreader
Inventor: Sandra Vasquez
Patented: 1995
Why: Solved a centuries-old problem with tamale-making - labor-intensiveness in spreading the masa onto the corn husks. The spreader resembles a windshield ice scraper.
Teflon
Inventor: The late Roy Plunkett, who made Padre Island his retirement home
Discovered: 1938, in Deepwater, N.J., while he was working for DuPont.
What it does: A non-stick coating. An incredibly slippery material inert to almost all chemicals.
Slikk-Gate
Inventor: Ray Felker, former flight test engineer
Patented: 1998, but he figured it out 20 years ago
Why: Cuts wind drag on pickup trucks, which increases fuel efficiency and stability.
The holdup: He has rejected a few manufacturing contracts on the advice of his lawyer and another prospect in Michigan has been hit with the economic downturn. Not one has been sold commercially.