. Leaving a Bright Legacy by Tom Terez Whenever I flick on a light these days, I think about invention and pride. I find myself asking questions like, "What have I created today?" "What have I done that's meaningful?" "What am I leaving behind?" It's all because of my father, Clarence Terez. He's 82 years old now, shaky from a stroke he had 10 years ago. But for 43 years, until his retirement in 1983, he worked as a mechanical engineer and machine designer for GE's lamp division. He and his colleagues invented machines that produced incandescent lamps that brought light to homes and offices throughout the world. My father's house -- the house he bought with my mother in 1953, the home I grew up in -- is going on the market next week. I've just made a final trip there, walking through empty rooms. The place had been stuffed with items accumulated from more than half a century, but my father chose to keep just a handful of mementos. Among them: his official documents from the U.S. Patent Office. You can see them yourself at the Patent Office's Web site. There's Patent No. 2,997,186, Lamp Transfer Mechanism, invented by Clarence S. Terez, issued on August 22, 1961. There's Patent No. 3,046,635, Lamp Base and Bulb Assembly Apparatus, July 31, 1962. There are two other patented inventions developed with a colleague: No. 2,711,760, Top Wire Positioning Mechanism, June 28, 1955; and No. 2,910,166, Electric Lamp Making Machine, October 27, 1959. The official "inventor's copies" of these patents are now tucked away in a business folder. My dad has them at the assisted-living facility where he now lives. If you visit him, it's almost certain that he'll pull out the folder and show you the prized designs. The stroke took away two-thirds of his vocabulary, but his pride remains fully intact. Most folks call him Terry -- a nickname derived from his last name because he never was keen on his first name. He still has all of his hair, and most of it's still black, combed back with a small daily dab of Groom & Clean. He still has brown plastic-rim bifocals, the kind that make smart people look smarter. But his most prominent characteristics are a ready smile and warm personality. Long gone are the R.G. Dun Admiral cigars (he often started the day with a stogie at breakfast), the pocket protector, and the well-sharpened pencil tucked on top of his ear. Terry was born in 1920 in the Polish neighborhood of Cleveland. Becoming a teenager during the Great Depression, he got a job picking vegetables so he could hand over a few coins each day to his mother. While the other kids kicked cans and played stickball, his idea of fun was building things. Give him several pieces of scrap lumber, a few junk wheels, and soon he'd be coasting along on a scooter. One time he built a complete boxing ring. He began it in the colder months, doing his pounding and sawing on the top floor of the family home. By summer, with school over, kids were ready to box -- but the top-floor location made for sweltering conditions, and Terry's mother wasn't keen on having young fighters traipsing in and out of the house. So he took it apart, sent it through the window piece by piece, and reassembled it outside. In a high-school shop class, Terry's creative mind and natural skills caught his teacher's eye. "You could get a job doing this," the teacher told him one day. "Tomorrow after school I'm going to take you to General Electric." The next day, the two drove together to a nearby GE plant in Cleveland. Terry stayed in the car while his shop teacher went inside, paving the way. Fifteen minutes later the teacher returned and invited him in. Terry met a shop foreman, learned about an apprentice opportunity, and said all the right things. Ten minutes later the teacher drove away, taking home GE's newest employee. When war came, Terry enlisted in the Army, where he worked as a mechanical designer. After his discharge, he went back to work at GE in the lamp division, beginning a career designing machines to make incandescent lamps. He attended college classes, but never got a degree. He was always exercising his creativity, always building, ever sketching in the pad he kept on a nightstand. In 1955, Terry attended a GE-sponsored invention workshop. He still has his designs and typed-up notes, all in perfect condition. There's the sketch of his proposed baby-food-warming dish -- a plug-in bowl perfect for all those postwar babies. And there's his idea to equip mixers with a wire-bristle attachment -- great for cleaning baby bottles in the days before dishwashers. Yes, Terry had kids on his mind. His first of four children had just been born. After retiring from GE nearly 20 years ago, my father continued building. He took up clock-making, fashioning desk-size replicas of clock towers at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan -- two of his children's alma maters. Lately, I've been thinking about his long-ago shop teacher, the one who saw the builder in my father and led him to GE. I've been thinking about his mother, who by most accounts was a demanding woman of few words, but who nonetheless indulged her son's early creativity. I've been thinking about that invention seminar my father attended in 1955 -- a little opportunity that left a big impression, big enough that he saved the notes for 47 years. I've been thinking about all the young engineers my father coached over the years -- the ones who secured their first patents thanks to him. I've been thinking about the pride my dad took in his work, pride that still glows like a high-wattage light bulb. And I'm left asking: What have I created today? What have I done that's meaningful? What am I leaving behind? ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tom Terez (TomTerez.com) is an international consultant and frequent speaker on organizational performance (BetterWorkplaceNow.com) and personal excellence (InnerBest.com) Copyright 2002 Crain Communications, Inc. Copyright © 2008 Tom Terez Workplace Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. P.O. Box 21444, Columbus, Ohio USA 43221-0444. Tel. 614-488-9721. Online Contact Form Home | Ideas and Insights | Improvement Tools | White Papers | Reprint Center | Talks, Workshops, Consulting | E-Letters | Contact | For Clients Visit our other sites:...TomTerez.com...InnerBest.com BetterWorkplaceNow.com, Better Workplace Now, TomTerez.com, InnerBest.com, and Inner Best are trademarks of Tom Terez Workplace Solutions, Inc.