Today's Los Angeles Times recounts the controversy over who invented the neoprene wetsuit. Was it UC Berkeley and Manhattan Project physicist Hugh Bradner, 89? Or Body Glove International co-founder Bob Meistrell, 77? Or Jack O'Neill, 82, the legend behind the famous surf brand? From the article:
"We developed the surf suit. I just know we did it," O'Neill says from his oceanfront home in Santa Cruz.
Meistrell, in constant motion inside the dining cabin of the company's 72-foot yacht, is similarly certain and direct. "I believe we did it first. And everyone copied us," he says.
O'Neill and Meistrell have locked horns in the wetsuit business and threatened lawsuits for decades. Each revels in his insistence that the other is wrong.
Bradner, the lone non-multimillionaire of the bunch, stakes his claim with professorial precision.
"The only invention I claim in this is the neoprene wetsuit," he says. "If somebody has documentation that precedes mine, I'd like to hear about it."
Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)
