Prolific inventor Wilson Greatbatch holds a great batch of patents: more than 150 of them. His celebrity, however, comes from just one of them: the implantable cardiac pacemaker, which he invented in 1958, just one year after having received his Master's in electrical engineering.
He has remarked that he always liked studying electricity because it was a thing you cannot see.
Greatbatch began his studies after having served in the Navy during World War II. He did instrumental work with monkeys that were being used in the U.S. space program until he happened upon a way to make a pacemaker that would help patients keep their hearts beating properly. With the help of two physicians, his device was tested on animals and later on humans. It was licensed to the Medtronic Company in the early 1960s.
The kindly looking, bow tie wearing Greatbatch also set up his own research/engineering company, Greatbatch Enterpsises, where he developed improved batteries for the pacemaker.
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