Kettering University

Search Kettering University's Web Site

Charles Kettering

Charles F. Kettering : Doing the right thing at the right time
By Richard P. Scharchburg, Thompson Professor of Industrial History

The Man...

Charles Franklin Kettering was born on a farm near Loundonville, Ohio, August 29, 1876. After graduation from high school, he accepted a teaching position in a one-room rural school. Although highly successful as a teacher, his mind was set on going to college.

In the summer of 1896, he entered the College of Wooster (Ohio). As a result of long and intense hours of study, his eyesight deteriorated to the point that he was forced to leave college and return to teaching. In 1898, he entered the engineering school at Ohio State, but again his poor eyesight forced him to drop out during his freshman year. For the next two years he worked on a telephone line crew, and then once again entered Ohio State, finally completing his electrical engineering degree in 1904.

After graduation, Kettering took a job in the inventions department at the National Cash Register Company (NCR) in Dayton, Ohio. There he developed an electric motor for cash registers, the OK Charge Phone for department stores and several other contributions to a revolution then taking place in business machines.

In 1909, Kettering and Edward A. Deeds, his associate at NCR, formed their own industrial research laboratory, the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (later known as DELCO). Within three years, they had produced a new all-electric starting, ignition and lighting system for automobiles. The system first appeared as standard equipment on the 1912 Cadillac and as its use spread, women could conveniently become drivers without the assistance of a chauffeur.

DELCO was eventually sold to General Motors and became the foundation for the General Motors Research Corporation of which Kettering became vice president in 1920. The list of innovations and inventions that are credited to Charles F. (nicknamed "Boss") Kettering is impressive.

His book of patents contains more than 300 separate applications that range from a portable lighting system for farms to coolants for refrigerators and air conditioners. Other patents included a World War I "aerial torpedo," a device for the treatment of venereal disease, and an incubator for premature infants. Duco paint and Ethyl gasoline were also his ideas and he was instrumental in their development. He had interest in the development of diesel engines, solar energy, and was a pioneer in the application of magnetism to medical diagnostic techniques.

He and his wife, Olive, had one son, Eugene Williams Kettering, who working with his father on diesel engine development and was largely responsible for the adaption of the diesel engine to railroad use. "Boss Ket" retired from General Motors Research in 1947 but served as a consultant over the next decade. Following a series of strokes, he died on November 24, 1958.

His Interest in Education...

When approached to support an early concept of "practical education" he observed "...that people learned not only with their minds, but with their eyes and ears and hands." He was expressing his unfaltering confidence in the superiority of an educational concept derived from his own teaching experience as well as involvement with several cooperative education institutions.

Kettering's relationship to GMI can best be described as that of a godfather. It began with his first talk in Flint in 1916, ten years before General Motors decided to take over the school. Walter Chrysler, chairman of the Industrial Committee of the YMCA, invited Kettering to Flint to talk about his views on practical education. On that occasion Kettering noted: "Modern psychology teaches that experience is not merely the best teacher, but the only possible teacher.. There is no war between theory and practice. The most valuable experience demands both, and the theory should supplement the practice and not precede it... Briefly, the cooperative job is the student's laboratory in which he learns the details of his profession."

Inspired by Kettering's presentation, the Industrial Committee of the YMCA arranged for factory workers to receive instruction adapted for their work in the factories. Under the committee's supervision, the resulting School of Automotive Trades offered a variety of classes over the next three years. Out of these early efforts to combine learning with practical needs came the formation of the Flint Institute of Technology in 1919 and the entrance of General Motors Institute in 1926. Speaking at the General Motors Institute's commencement in August, 1932, Kettering said. "I think that the greatest education in the world is the education which helps one to be able to do the right things at the time it has to be done."

In 1941 on a similar occasion, he observed, "If we taught music the way we try to teach engineering, in an unbroken four-year course, we could end up with all theory and no music. When we study music, we start to practice from the beginning, and we practice for the entire time, because there is no other way to become a musician. Neither can we become engineers just by studying a text book, because practical experience is needed to correlate the so-called theory with practice." Thus Kettering reiterated his belief in the value of a practical education, a blending of theoretical knowledge with experience and common sense, to do the right thing at the right time.

Boss Ket's interest in his godchild, GMI, continued throughout his General Motors career, and throughout his life. The Kettering Archives are appropriately located at GMI. Students and researchers are constantly impressed and amazed at the range of Kettering's interests, as well as the wisdom and common sense of his practical approach to engineering and life. His numerous speeches and writings are replete with references to GMI and on many occasions he was eagerly sought as commentator, consultant, commencement speaker and alumni program guest. He never once failed to extol the advantages of hands-on learning and the dedication of GMI to that principle of education.