Author: darryl

Few people have impacted the communications world we live in today more than this innovative giant, Mervin Kelly (1894-1971). The 1910 Valedictorian of Gallatin High School was the lab research who eventually became Chairman of the Board at Bell Laboratories.

Mr. Kelly had great intelligence and great force. His work with R.A. Millikan at the University of Chicago gave him a lasting appreciation of the rarity and importance of first-rate scientists and first-rate research. He himself did creditable physical research. Later at the Western Electric Company and at Bell Laboratories (which was not formed until 1925), he did early and important work on vacuum tubes, including research, development, and manufacture. His group increased the life of telephone repeater (amplifier) tubes from 1,000 to 80,000 hours which by 1933 led to a transmitting tube for transatlantic telephony and broadcasting with an unprecedented power of 100,000 watts, and then later to a tube with a power of 250,000 watts.

Mr. Kelly was different. His fundamental belief was that an “institute of creative technology” like his own needed a “critical mass” of talented people to foster a busy exchange of ideas. But innovation required much more than that. Mr. Kelly was convinced that physical proximity was everything; phone calls alone wouldn’t do. Quite intentionally, Bell Labs housed thinkers and doers under one roof. Purposefully mixed together on the transistor project were physicists, metallurgists and electrical engineers; side by side were specialists in theory, experimentation and manufacturing. Like an able concert hall conductor, he sought a harmony, and sometimes a tension, between scientific disciplines; between researchers and developers; and between soloists and groups.

One element of his approach was architectural. He personally helped design a building in Murray Hill, N.J., opened in 1941, where everyone would interact with one another. Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible. A physicist on his way to lunch in the cafeteria was like a magnet rolling past iron filings.

Another element of the approach was aspirational. Bell Labs was some-times caricatured as an ivory tower. But it is more aptly described as an ivory tower with a factory downstairs. It was clear to the researchers and engineers there that the ultimate aim of their organization was to transform new knowledge into new things.

Still another method Mr. Kelly used to push ahead was organizational. He set up Bell Labs’ satellite facilities in the phone company’s manufacturing plants, so as to help transfer all these new ideas into things. But the exchange was supposed to go both ways, with the engineers learning from the plant workers, too. As manufacturing increasingly moved out of the United States during the last half of the 20th Century, it likewise took with it a whole ecosystem of industrial knowledge. But in the past, this knowledge tended to push Bell Labs – and this country – toward new innovations.

“True Innovation”
by Jon Gertner
published Feb 25, 2012, in the The New York Times

Why study Bell Labs? It offers a number of lessons about how our country’s technology companies — and our country’s longstanding innovative edge — actually came about. Yet Bell Labs also presents a more encompassing and ambitious approach to innovation than what prevails today. Its staff worked on the incremental improvements necessary for a complex national communications network while simultaneously thinking far ahead, toward the most revolutionary inventions imaginable.

Indeed, in the search for innovative models to address seemingly intractable problems like climate change, we would do well to consider Bell Labs’ example — an effort that rivals the Apollo program and the Manhattan Project in size, scope and expense. Its mission, and its great triumph, was to connect all of us, and all of our new machines, together.

In his recent letter to potential shareholders of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg noted that one of his firm’s mottoes was “move fast and break things.” Bell Labs’ might just as well have been “move deliberately and build things.” This sounds like the quaint pursuit of men who carried around slide rules and went to bed by 10 o’clock. But it was not.

Consider what Bell Labs achieved. For a long stretch of the 20th century, it was the most innovative scientific organization in the world. On any list of its inventions, the most notable is probably the transistor, invented in 1947, which is now the building block of all digital products and contemporary life. These tiny devices can accomplish a multitude of tasks. The most basic is the amplification of an electric signal. But with small bursts of electricity, transistors can be switched on and off, and effectively be made to represent a “bit” of information, which is digitally expressed as a 1 or 0. Billions of transistors now reside on the chips that power our phones and computers.

Bell Labs produced a startling array of other innovations, too. The silicon solar cell, the precursor of all solar-powered devices, was invented there. Two of its researchers were awarded the first patent for a laser, and colleagues built a host of early prototypes. (Every DVD player has a laser, about the size of a grain of rice, akin to the kind invented at Bell Labs.)

Bell Labs created and developed the first communications satellites; the theory and development of digital communications; and the first cellular telephone systems. What’s known as the charge-coupled device, or CCD, was created there and now forms the basis for digital photography.

Bell Labs also built the first fiber optic cable systems and subsequently created inventions to enable gigabytes of data to zip around the globe. It was no slouch in programming, either. Its computer scientists developed Unix and C, which form the basis for today’s most essential operating systems and computer languages.

And these are just a few of the practical technologies. Some Bell Labs researchers composed papers that significantly extended the boundaries of physics, chemistry, astronomy and mathematics. Other Bell Labs engineers focused on creating extraordinary new processes (rather than new products) for Ma Bell’s industrial plants. In fact, “quality control” — the statistical analysis now used around the world as a method to ensure high-quality manufactured products — was first applied by Bell Labs mathematicians.

So how can we explain how one relatively small group of scientists and engineers, working at Bell Labs in New Jersey over a relatively short span of time, came out with such an astonishing cluster of new technologies and ideas? They invented the future, which is what we now happen to call the present. And it was not by chance or serendipity. They knew something. But what?

At Bell Labs, the man most responsible for the culture of creativity was Mervin Kelly. Probably Mr. Kelly’s name does not ring a bell. Born in rural Missouri to a working-class family and then educated as a physicist at the University of Chicago, he went on to join the research corps at AT&T. Between 1925 and 1959, Mr. Kelly was employed at Bell Labs, rising from researcher to chairman of the board. In 1950, he traveled around Europe, delivering a presentation that explained to audiences how his laboratory worked.

His fundamental belief was that an “institute of creative technology” like his own needed a “critical mass” of talented people to foster a busy exchange of ideas. But innovation required much more than that. Mr. Kelly was convinced that physical proximity was everything; phone calls alone wouldn’t do. Quite intentionally, Bell Labs housed thinkers and doers under one roof. Purposefully mixed together on the transistor project were physicists, metallurgists and electrical engineers; side by side were specialists in theory, experimentation and manufacturing. Like an able concert hall conductor, he sought a harmony, and sometimes a tension, between scientific disciplines; between researchers and developers; and between soloists and groups.

ONE element of his approach was architectural. He personally helped design a building in Murray Hill, N.J., opened in 1941, where everyone would interact with one another. Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible. A physicist on his way to lunch in the cafeteria was like a magnet rolling past iron filings.

Another element of the approach was aspirational. Bell Labs was sometimes caricatured as an ivory tower. But it is more aptly described as an ivory tower with a factory downstairs. It was clear to the researchers and engineers there that the ultimate aim of their organization was to transform new knowledge into new things.

Steven Chu, secretary of the Department of Energy, won a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work at Bell Labs in the early 1980s. He once said that working in an environment of applied science like Bell Labs “doesn’t destroy a kernel of genius, it focuses the mind.” At Bell Labs, even for researchers in pursuit of pure scientific understanding, it was obvious that their work could be used.

Mr. Kelly believed that freedom was crucial, especially in research. Some of his scientists had so much autonomy that he was mostly unaware of their progress until years after he authorized their work. When he set up the team of researchers to work on what became the transistor, for instance, more than two years passed before the invention occurred. Afterward, when he set up another team to handle the invention’s mass manufacture, he dropped the assignment into the lap of an engineer and instructed him to come up with a plan. He told the engineer he was going to Europe in the meantime.

In sum, he trusted people to create. And he trusted them to help one another create. To him, having at Bell Labs a number of scientific exemplars — “the guy who wrote the book,” as these standouts were often called, because they had in fact written the definitive book on a subject — was necessary. But so was putting them into the everyday mix. In an era before cubicles, all employees at Bell Labs were instructed to work with their doors open.

Saddled with a difficult problem, a new hire there, an anxious nobody, was regularly directed by a supervisor toward the guy who wrote the book. Some young employees would quake when they were told to ask a question of famous mathematicians like Claude Shannon or legendary physicists like William Shockley. Still, Bell Labs’ policy was not to turn them away.

THERE was another element necessary to Mervin Kelly’s innovation strategy, an element as crucial, or more crucial even, than all the others. Mr. Kelly talked fast and walked fast; he ran up and down staircases. But he gave his researchers not only freedom but also time. Lots of time — years to pursue what they felt was essential. One might see this as impossible in today’s faster, more competitive world. Or one might contend it is irrelevant because Bell Labs (unlike today’s technology companies) had the luxury of serving a parent organization that had a large and dependable income ensured by its monopoly status. Nobody had to meet benchmarks to help with quarterly earnings; nobody had to rush a product to market before the competition did.

But what should our pursuit of innovation actually accomplish? By one definition, innovation is an important new product or process, deployed on a large scale and having a significant impact on society and the economy, that can do a job (as Mr. Kelly once put it) “better, or cheaper, or both.” Regrettably, we now use the term to describe almost anything. It can describe a smartphone app or a social media tool; or it can describe the transistor or the blueprint for a cellphone system. The differences are immense. One type of innovation creates a handful of jobs and modest revenues; another, the type Mr. Kelly and his colleagues at Bell Labs repeatedly sought, creates millions of jobs and a long-lasting platform for society’s wealth and well-being.

The conflation of these different kinds of innovations seems to be leading us toward a belief that small groups of profit-seeking entrepreneurs turning out innovative consumer products are as effective as our innovative forebears. History does not support this belief. The teams at Bell Labs that invented the laser, transistor and solar cell were not seeking profits. They were seeking understanding. Yet in the process they created not only new products but entirely new — and lucrative — industries.

There’s no single best way to innovate. Silicon Valley’s methods have benefited our country well over the course of several decades. And it would be absurd to return to an era of big monopolies. Today’s telecom industries are thriving, and customers likewise have access to a dazzling range of affordable devices and services, which most likely would not have been true had the old phone company remained intact. Though it had custody of the world’s most innovative labs, AT&T introduced new products and services slowly, and rarely cheaply. As Time magazine once put it, “Few companies are more conservative; none are more creative.”

But to consider the legacy of Bell Labs is to see that we should not mistake small technological steps for huge technological leaps. It also shows us that to always “move fast and break things,” as Facebook is apparently doing, or to constantly pursue “a gospel of speed” (as Google has described its philosophy) is not the only way to get where we are going. Perhaps it is not even the best way. Revolutions happen fast but dawn slowly. To a large extent, we’re still benefiting from risks that were taken, and research that was financed, more than a half century ago.

Larry Dickinson, D.O., family physician in Gallatin, was awarded the 2017 Osteopathic Family Physician of the Year Award by the Missouri Society of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (MSACOFP).

Dr. Dickinson was honored at a ceremony on Jan. 28, 2017, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Independence, MO, during the 2017 MSACOFP Winter Scientific Seminar. The prestigious award is given to an osteopathic family physician who exemplifies the principles of osteopathic family medicine via outstanding accomplishments and service for the betterment of the osteopathic profession. He was nominated by John R. Sparks, D.O.

Dr. Dickinson is a 1975 graduate of A.T. Still University – Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, MO. He has been in private practice for over 40 years and is an active staff member at Hedrick Medical Center in Chillicothe. He is board certified in family medicine by the American Osteopathic Board of Family Physicians. Dr. Dickinson has been active with the MSACOFP for many years and served on the Board of Governors from 2010-2012.

Dr. Dickinson also served the Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons (MAOPS) on its Board of Trustees and as a delegate at its House of Delegates.

Larry grew up on the family farm in “beautiful downtown Carlow” in Daviess County and they still own the farm.

Growing up on the farm, Larry dealt with runts and sickly animals on a regular basis. And he found that if he took care of them, they usually lived. And when they lived, they became his property. “I made money that way,” he said. He was actually born at Hedrick Medical Center and graduated from Gallatin R-5 High School in 1968.

His experience with small animals made him a hero to his young children when he saved their ailing pets, at one time even using an IV to care for a small dog with a flailed chest. The dog lived to a ripe old age.

Dr. Dickinson stopped delivering babies in 2004, due to the high cost of malpractice insurance. With malpractice insurance so high, after 28 years and roughly 2,000 deliveries (1,864 after coming to Gallatin, not counting the babies delivered in training), he made the decision to quit.

The last baby he delivered was on Nov. 10, 2004. He recalls that all of the OB nurses at Hedrick gathered for that last delivery, just to mark the milestone. There were so many nurses in the room that the mother asked if it was normal to have so many. But they were celebrating his last delivery. “Quitting was like withdrawal,” he said. “And we had an empty nest at the same time.”

When Dr. Dickinson first started his practice, there were eight physicians in Daviess County alone, and there were seven doctors making deliveries at Hedrick in 1976.

Larry and Patty met while he was in medical school at Kirksville. Patty was working toward a degree in Special Ed and Learning Disabilities. Larry graduated on June 4, 1975, and the two were married three days later.

Patty spent some time in her chosen profession. She set up the K-12 programs for Special Ed and Learning Disabilities in Ashley, Michigan, Bowling Green, Missouri, and Gallatin, where she taught for three years.

But when Larry needed help at his office in Gallatin, Patty volunteered. They’ve worked in tandem since 1976. “We were newlyweds,” said Larry. “And we just didn’t see much of each other.”

The benefits of working together are many. “When you get home you don’t have to tell the story over again. She already knows it,” said Larry.

Together, Larry and Patty delivered 14 babies in his office. “She can hand me the right instruments, while holding a baby on her hip … at 1 a.m. in the morning. She is very adept!” Patty stayed at home for a few years when their kids were small, but then started bringing them to the office, the best kind of daycare … with both mom and dad around.

Larry and Patty built their home east of Gallatin on Highway O in 1989.

Both of the Dickinsons’ children have pursued careers in the medical field. Their son Patrick and his wife Ashley reside in Valparaiso, Ind. Patrick is in anesthesia as a CRNA and Ashley is the Chief Operating Officer of Porter Hospital in Valparaiso. Kari and her husband Eric Genenbacher reside in Mesa, Ariz., where they are busy with Eric’s dental practice and raising their daughter Reese and son Rhett.

Since Dr. Dickinson’s office is equidistant between four hospitals, many trauma victims are actually brought to his office to stabilize. He has dealt with many industrial accidents, as well as agricultural accidents.

“If you do what you’re trained to do, I can’t imagine not being kind and genuine as part of this vocation. It’s second nature, because it helps a lot of people more than medicine, especially patients who are terminal or have a disease that can’t be cured. And I always tell my young mothers that I don’t mind if they call me at home, because we’re both more comfortable knowing that the baby is ok. And it is great to have the privilege of taking care of five generations of a family, too.”

In 1983, the Columbia Missourian did a story on Dr. Dickinson, because his name kept cropping up in the university’s sociology studies concerning country doctors and doctor shortages. He has a long list of professional osteopathic affiliations on his resume. He served as Hedrick’s chief of staff in 1987, 2000 and 2005, as well as many other positions there. He served on the Board of Directors of Hedrick Medical Center from 1993-2003, and on the board of Grand River Medical System – St. Luke’s Health System from 2003 to 2005. He was the 1993 Missouri Emergency Medical Service Association “Physician of the Year.” He is also affiliated with Wright Memorial Hospital in Trenton and Daviess County Nursing and Rehab.

Dr. Dickinson may have been the last person to do family practice and OB, because that’s very uncommon now. But he still takes care of babies. The hours are not quite as long now. He doesn’t have to go to the hospital every day, so he can have office calls in the morning.

“I need to write a book,” Larry said. “My stories aren’t always sad or funny, but they’re good solid memories of 40 years. One night I parked in a different spot at the hospital, and the staff got concerned. I had put in a long night and had simply disappeared to take an hour’s nap, but I got in trouble for moving my parking spot!”

Dr. Dickinson’s most recent honor is from the MSACOFP, a network of osteopathic family physicians dedicated to providing the finest family medical care in Missouri. The mission of the MSACOFP is to preserve and promote the distinct philosophy and practice of osteopathic family medicine by advancing quality education, leadership and responsible advocacy. The MSACOFP actively works to defend and protect the rights and interests of the osteopathic family physician.

In Dr. Dickinson’s words to the Society:  “I would like to thank my wife and children for their support in allowing me to live this dream. All I’ve ever asked was the love and respect of my patients and my community. Now to be recognized by my peers; all I can say is, I humbly thank you.”

[Portions of this story were taken from an article printed in the Gallatin North Missourian in September, 2006, when Larry and Patty were chosen to be grand marshals in the Daviess County Chautauqua parade.]

Dr. Lee Rogers (GHS Class of 1996) was named this month as one of America’s Most Influential Podiatrists by Podiatry Management magazine for his national leadership, research, and advocacy in prevention of amputations from diabetes.

His notable accomplishments included more than 150 published papers, articles, and book chapters on the subject, and he has delivered more than 400 lectures worldwide.  He currently serves as the medical director of the Amputation Prevention Centers of America, part of a company overseeing 200 wound care and limb salvage centers in 34 states.

Rogers said, “Every 30 seconds, somewhere in the world a limb is lost as a consequence of diabetes.  And after amputation, the prognosis is poor, 70% will die within 5 years.”  Yet, the World Health Organization estimates that 80% of diabetes-related amputations are preventable.

In a seminal paper, “The Right to Bear Legs, an Amendment to Healthcare,” Rogers explained how foot problems make up roughly one-third of the total cost of diabetes in the United States and how simple, inexpensive measures could save the healthcare system billions of dollars.  In 2016, the three national thought-leaders on the diabetic foot, including Rogers, founded a company to aid health insurance companies and governments to improve care and reduce costs related to the diabetic foot.

In 2011 in Paris, France, Rogers led the International Consensus on the Charcot foot, a rare but devastating complication in the diabetic foot frequently leading to amputation.  Rogers’s subsequent manuscript, “The Charcot foot in diabetes,” is now the most frequently referenced paper on the topic.

In June, Lee was selected as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, Scotland for his international work in diabetes complications.  Fewer than 20 American podiatrists have been admitted to the Royal College in its more than 400-year history.

Dr. Rogers has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report, the Washington Post, and he’s appeared as a guest on ABC’s The Doctors, PBS’s American Medical Journal, and Al Jazeera International’s The Cure.  His work in diabetic amputation prevention has brought him to all 50 states and more than 30 countries.

Dr. Rogers is the son of Madelynn and Steve Adkison, Jameson, and the late Bob Rogers. His mother once owned and operated Sandman Motel in Gallatin; Bob Rogers owned and operated Skakey’s Place restaurant and also served as Gallatin mayor.