Benjamin Franklin Miessner was an American radio engineer and inventor.
20 Facts About Benjamin Miessner
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Benjamin Miessner is most known for his electronic organ, electronic piano, and other musical instruments.
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Benjamin Miessner was the inventor of the Cat's whisker detector.
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Miessner was born in Huntingburg, Indiana to Charles and Mary Miessner and was the brother of Otto Miessner.
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Benjamin Miessner attended school in Huntingburg and graduated from high school in 1908.
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Benjamin Miessner then enlisted in the US Navy, and graduated from the US Naval Electrical School in Brooklyn, NY in 1909.
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Benjamin Miessner was assigned to a naval radio station in Washington, DC to be a radio operator.
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Benjamin Miessner left the Navy to work with John Hays Hammond Jr.
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Benjamin Miessner studied electrical engineering at Purdue University from 1913 to 1916 where he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity.
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Benjamin Miessner communicated with Nikola Tesla about the book on radio dynamics he was writing and Tesla's own work in the field of radio controls.
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Benjamin Miessner moved to Chicago in the early 1920s where he worked for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company where he founded the company's acoustical lab.
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Benjamin Miessner moved back east to New Jersey in 1926 to be the chief engineer at Garod Corp.
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Benjamin Miessner used this money to begin his own company, Miessner Inventions, Inc in Millburn, New Jersey.
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Benjamin Miessner developed a new system of sound recording and reproduction and perfected the Wurlitzer organ and electronic piano.
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In 1934, one of Benjamin Miessner's patents was used by the Everett Piano Company in the first large scale production on an electronic organ known as the Orgatron.
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Benjamin Miessner was involved in a copyright battle with another company on the violin's design, which he lost.
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When Benjamin Miessner dissolved his company in 1959 he had been granted over two hundred patents and sold about one hundred fifty of them.
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Benjamin Miessner was appointed to the ad hoc Patent System Reform panel of the US Department of Commerce in 1963.
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Benjamin Miessner was a board member of the Academy of Applied Sciences and president of the Patent Equity Association.
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In 1963, Benjamin Miessner won the De Forest Audion gold medal for inventive achievement.