Elon Musk is the man behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, multi-billion dollar companies he founded. Although he is now a multi-billionaire, his objective has never been to amass great wealth, but to save humanity. Writing in the Smithsonian,...

Elon Musk

Kelly Johnson designed the Blackbird, a plane that flew non-stop from London to Los Angeles in less than four hours, outracing the sun and landing four hours before it had taken off, a remarkable feat - and this was more than 35 years ago. Johnson wa...

Clarence L. 'Kelley' Johnson

The great American automotive pioneers were entrepreneurial inventors and visionaries who changed the American landscape and brought us a new national culture.  The dawn of the automobile ushered away the ubiquitous horse-drawn carriages and the rutt...

A Road Well Traveled

Here's a biographical profile of Charles F. Kettering, a man who always sought solutions to great problems. A philosopher, engineer, master salesman, scientist and genius inventor, Kettering, Delco's founder and major shareholder of GM, gave us many ...

Charles F. Kettering

Henry Ford, an American folk hero to many, was a man with several faces. He was a genius who revolutionized the automobile industry, irrevocably altered American culture and commerce, developed mass production, and helped the middle class emerge in A...

Henry Ford

Here's a biographical profile of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., a fashionable dresser whose starched and pressed stiff-collared shirts, double-breasted suits, spats and a pearl tie pin gave him the appearance of a dandy, of a playboy. But Sloan, who built Gen...

Alfred P. Sloan Jr.

Several prominent brother teams pioneered the American automobile industry: Horace and John Dodge, Charles and Frank Duryea, Francis and Freelan Stanley, five Studebaker brothers and James and William Packard. However, the seven burly Fisher brothers...

The Fabulous Fisher Brothers: The Rothschilds of America

Biographical profile of Walter Elias Disney, the man who built an empire on the back of a mouse. Imbued with an iron-like drive to succeed, Disney pushed, prodded, and pressed those around him, as he did himself, to succeed. He was always on the edge...

Walt Disney: The Man behind the Mouse

Howard Hughes was a mysterious billionaire, heroic, tragic, brilliant, mad, pathological, and extraordinarily wealthy. He was a great businessman or a terrible one; the jury is still out. But his life was fascinating and disturbing. Orphaned at 18 an...

Howard Hughes

Here's a biographical profile of Henry J. Kaiser, a great industrialist and philanthropist who had a profound impact on America's ability to prevail in World War II. People tend to regard the great American titans of the past as robber barons, men wh...

Henry J. Kaiser

J. Edgar Hoover called the FBI the "Seat of Government", and in many way it was. He was one of the most powerful men in American history and while he was at the helm of the "Seat of Government", few dared to defy him. He was a law onto himself, the s...

J. Edgar Hoover: The FBI and the Power Behind the 'Seat of Government'

Here's a biographical profile of John D. Hertz, a prolific industrialist and founder of several famous companies. Yellow cabs are as prosaic to America as black taxis are to London. In 1915, Hertz formed Yellow Cab in Chicago and painted his taxis ye...

John D. Hertz: Yellow Cab, Trucks, and Rental Cars

Here's a biographical profile of James Ward Packard, an American automobile pioneer. Unlike many of the automobile pioneers who received their primary training with blacksmiths, or under watchful eyes of mechanics in wagon, bicycle or railroad shops,...

James W. Packard Created the American Rolls Royce

Here's a biographical profile of Charles Goodyear, the man who gave the world one of its most useful products: vulcanized rubber. Natural rubber, the milky sap of rubber trees, is not a very practical commodity. It melts in hot weather or cracks and ...

Charles Goodyear

The great American automotive pioneers were entrepreneurial inventors and visionaries who changed the American landscape and brought us a new national culture. The dawn of the automobile ushered away the ubiquitous horse-drawn carriages and the rutte...

Here's a biographical profile of the Freelan and Francis Stanley, identical twins who developed the Stanley Steamers, cars powered by steam engines. In 1897 the brothers, dressed alike in overcoats, bowler hats and sporting thick black beards appeare...

The Stanley Brothers: Steam Cars and the Rocket

Here's a biographical profile of Walter Chrysler, the pioneer automotive genius who established one of the iconic brands in American automobiles and was known as "Mr. Fix It" for his uncanny ability to fix sick automobile companies. The Chrysler Buil...

Walter Percy Chrysler

Here's a biographical profile of Charles and J. Frank Duryea, two visionaries who were among the first to recognize the potential of the automobile. In 1892 they built America's first gasoline-powered car and had it running successfully the following...

Charles and Frank Duryea Brought Us America's First Gasoline-Powered Car

Buick is one of the best known automobile brands today as it was more than a century ago. But unlike other automobile pioneers, Ford, Dodge, and Olds, who became rich and famous with their car companies, Buick prospered not at all from his namesake. ...

David Dunbar Buick Left His Name and Nothing Else

Here's a biographical profile of the White brothers who built steamers and trucks and developed a reputation for unique marketing concepts. "The Fight of the Century" took place in 1910, pitting Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight bo...

The White Bros.

Here's a biographical profile of John M. Studebaker, one of the largest wagon manufacturing concern in the U.S. who foresaw a new mode of transportation. Although five Studebaker brothers were involved at one time or another in the wagon and car business, the evolution of the company from wagons to cars and its enormous success is largely attributable to one brother, John Mohler Studebaker.

John M. Studebaker

Here's a biographical profile of Charles Nash, an American automobile tycoon who died in 1948 in the tony city of Beverly Hills, California, leaving an estate of approximately $50 million. Not bad considering his roots: a dirt-poor farm boy whose par...

Charles W. Nash

Here's a biographical profile of the Duesenberg brothers, Augie and Fred, who built some of America's most famous cars, cars that today sell for millions at auctions. Jay Leno, owner of an extensive classic car collection, calls the Duesenberg SJ his...

Fred and Augie Duesenberg Made America's Greatest Car

Here's a biographical profile of Ransom E. Olds, regarded as the first of the great American automobile pioneers. He not only sold the first car manufactured in America, his company was the first of the great automobile enterprises, a model and train...

Ransom E. Olds

Here's a biographical profile of John and Horace Dodge, the fabulously wealthy Detroit automobile pioneers who reveled in yachts, estates and producing great cars. Unfortunately, John and Horace's lifestyles were unacceptable to the social elite in D...

John and Horace Dodge

Here's a biographical profile of Henry Leland, one of the less well-known American automobile pioneers, but who's cars are top named brands and his imprint on the development of the American automobile industry is with few parallels. If Leland had na...

Henry Martyn Leland: The King of Luxury Cars Cadillac and Lincoln

Here's a biographical profile of Harvey Firestone, founder of Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. Once upon a time, there were four friends who called themselves the Vagabonds. They took summer trips together, shared their thoughts, dreams and visions, and...

Harvey Firestone

Biographical profile of Roy Chapin, the automobile pioneer who gave us many memorable cars including the Hudson Hornet, featured in the 2006 Disney-Pixar animated film "Cars" as Doc Hudson, a 1951 model (voice of Paul Newman). Chapin's success can be...

Roy Chapin

Here's a biographical profile of Charles Howard, who built the world's largest automobile dealer network. Howard owned the famous thoroughbred Seabiscuit, and the story of the scrappy horse is fascinating; but Howard's rise to power and wealth is jus...

Charles Howard

Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old founder of Facebook, is not only the youngest self-made billionaire in history, he was worth $19.1 billion right after Facebook's initial public offering. Although his meteoric rise had lost some of its luster after t...

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