[Music]
thank you all very much for being here
I’m Brian Jordan innovator inventor some
say I’m a futurist but I’d like to think
of myself more as a professional day
dreamer in my perspective I think of
change as creating new ideas new ways of
doing things and an inventor you have to
be kind of part engineer part artist
part scientist even part historian so as
a student of history what I would like
to do is talk to you about today’s topic
from a historical perspective didn’t
give you a little background about me
and my experience then hopefully we’ll
tie it all together what change means
locally so let’s to go ahead and jump
right in what we have here is an image
of some early humans fending off an
attack from a saber-toothed tiger now
scientists have determined from looking
at our DNA that early humans once
numbered in the millions then their
numbers dwindled down to less than
10,000 on the entire planet that
dwindling was due in part to that uber
predator at the time the saber-tooth
Tiger they hunted us to the verge of
extinction well you may ask what
happened how did we go from that small
number in East Africa it’s at over 7
billion of us on a planet today that was
due to one our earliest of innovations
that you may have guessed discovery a
fire with the discovery of fire no
longer were our nights filled with fear
uncertainty nights were filled with
light sharing of new ideas new
innovations and of course my favorite
hot food it’s time we went on we come on
with new ideas new innovations that help
all of mankind some of our innovations
were not so great so what I would like
to do well in my perspective I think
that the best innovations came out
during the 20th century so I would like
to talk about two inventors
that have changed the way we live our
live in the 20th century the first
person is Garrett Morgan he came up with
the automatic traffic signal this was at
a time when automobiles were
infancy he witnessed an accident at an
intersection and he said there’s got to
be a better way to control traffic aside
from placing a policeman on every corner
so he came up with this idea however as
people we tend to resist change and
people took a particular offense to this
idea because at the time we thought we
didn’t need a device to tell us when it
stopped and when they go we’re smart we
can do that on our own but where would
we be without that traffic signal all of
us have used it this morning coming in
here the next person is probably one of
my favorites Philo Farnsworth he created
the automatic image pickup this was a
device that took images from a motion
picture camera and transferred it
electronically to a cathode ray tube
this was invented during a Golden Age of
Radio people certainly thought it was
neat it was cool it was high-tech but
what was the use of it it served no
purpose Philo even suggested that hey
you can take radio programs have actors
act them out and people could watch
those programs in the privacy of their
own home now this is the funny thing
people actually said this this came out
of their mouths they said Philo people
will never stare into a tube for hours
and hours and hours let me actually said
that now the interesting thing I want
you to realize about Philo Farnsworth is
he died in 1972 almost broke this guy
single-handedly invented television and
he died fighting lawsuit spending the
remainder of his day he’s fighting those
lawsuits from companies that stole his
ideas and made millions many of those
companies still making TVs today now Who
am I Who am I to talk to you about
change
I’m Brian Jordan graduated from virgin
Military Institute with a degree in
physics and mathematics I played
football all four years there and I
suffered three broken noses a concussion
and a bum ankle as a result of that one
of the funny stories about that when my
oldest son was standing right next to me
was little he told to my wife he said
you know I don’t believe dad played
college football and she says why he
said he had three broken noses and that
kind of impossible since he only had one
so anyway after graduation I work for an
environmental company as a chemist but
the military was always in my blood so I
decided to get commissioned a u.s. Navy
and I worked at navy as an aviator and I
phototype well anyway one of the things
I want you guys to realize about me
that’s important is at a very young age
I’ve always been an inventor I’ve always
looked at how we can change things and
make things better and what I want to do
is talk about our first product the
first product that we came up with I
came up with when I was in the sixth
grade it’s called a vortex generator and
what happens is it takes a vortex of air
or circular toroid that maintains
consistency on itself it can travel for
hundreds of feet you can knock over cups
blow out candles ruffle people’s hair it
was a neat little product that I made
years later when I get married my kids
were really young and I decided to build
one for them and they’re shooting each
other they’re shooting me to shooting my
wife they’re shooting the cat and those
of you know my wife no she’s very
business minded and she’s like wow we
could certainly market that product I
said you think yeah let’s do it
so we jumped in with both feet and we
went off the market this product now
simultaneously my time in the Navy was
coming to an end
I could either re-up or get out so I
decided to get out of the baby active
duty and go into Naval Reserve and we
dedicated full-time effort to marketing
this product that we called the arizuka
we were young we were kind of naive full
of vim and vinegar and we said how hard
could it be we’ll be millionaires inside
of six months right almost two years
later who were no closer to marketing
this advice when we started we had
reached our financial wit’s in we had
borrowed money from family friends and a
few fools and we’re about to throw in
the towel and this company in New York
at contact with us I said they were
interested in the product and they were
willing to manufacture market sell and
pay us a royalty today this product is
called the arizuka and we’ve sold
millions of these today not only that we
didn’t stop with the arizuka but we have
other products that we’re in a process
of make marketing now I’m going to stop
right here and I feel we need to talk
about the big pink elephant in the room
you guys are probably wondering what’s
up with this guy’s mess
pan and it’s okay
you know I come to terms years ago that
I would never become a hand model so let
me tell you that story it’s not as bad
as it looks it really isn’t a few years
ago I was working in my shop with my
youngest son and there was an old table
saw that was in a corner it was faulty
under it was faulty and I decided
against my better judgment to go ahead
and use this said saw and in doing so I
successfully managed to sever several
digits on my left hand now while I was
there my older son was all also there he
was 14 at the time and what book makes
me really proud of him as he went from a
crazy 14 year old with silly bands all
over his arm at the time to a
responsible adult within a matter of
second he sees me know gushing blood out
of my hand he says oh my gosh dad sit
down I’m gonna raise your hand and stop
the bleeding he put a towel around it he
managed to find my separate digits he
cleaned them off put him on ice called
911 and the paramedics came and took me
to the Baltimore hand center where they
were able to save my middle finger but
they want her to save the other two
because they were so badly mangled now
in doing this you know my wife told me
that my youngest son who witnessed the
accident was traumatized you know I
think I’d be traumatized too if I saw my
dad lose three fingers and the only
thing that calmed him down was my wife
told him that no don’t worry
your dad’s an inventor he’ll make some
new fingers better than his own okay
great so now now I have that work on so
as I heal you know I kind of forgot
about the fingers and he would always
nag me he was like dad what are you
gonna build your fingers I’m going I’ll
get to it Noah dad dad please you got to
work on your fingers I said okay I’ll
get to it so now I had marching orders
from an eight-year-old and we began to
work in the shop on some prosthetic
fingers now the first thing I did when I
got back to that lab was throw away that
old saw didn’t want to see that again
so what we have here are some 3d printed
versions along with some conceptual
drawings we have also what we did when
we were working on this we discovered
that there are millions of people
worldwide who are missing fingers one or
more digital you tease so we decided to
create a nonprofit organization where we
can help these people out and also
promote digital prosthetic awareness now
that’s enough about me what I want to do
is continue to talk about the topic at
hand I saw a commercial years ago with
Avery Brooks he’s Captain Sisko from
what’s that Star Trek Deep Space Nine
and every time I saw that commercial I
would almost draw something in my mind
and I’ll try to reenact a commercial as
best I can here’s a Avery Brooks
impersonation we’re in the 21st century
and we were promised flying cars where
other flying cars so whenever I saw that
commercial I would think hmmm well I
guess here they are this is our latest
project and we’re trying to create it’s
called the Pegasus the Pegasus is a
single pilot flying platform that flies
up to ten feet in the air of over any
obstacle it’s to be used by police fire
EMS
first responders or anyone else who
wants to go from point A to point B and
to be unencumbered by obstacles
currently was still a ways from a
working prototype where our goal is to
build these right here in Southern
Maryland now thank you
speaking of Southern Maryland and change
Southern Maryland is no stranger to
change since 1943 with the exception of
Naas Patuxent River this place has been
in steady state of change ever since
also in the early 1940s we were drawn
into the midst of World War two and at
that time the German Kriegsmarine and
particularly the u-boats controlled the
North Atlantic they eat for the most
part sank allied vessels at will and at
the time our country we’re using tactics
from World War one and we weren’t
successful then right here in this area
came new innovations in anti-submarine
warfare where we learn how to use sonar
to hunt track and detect these
submarines and it gave us control over
the North Atlantic which made it
possible for the US and Canada send
millions of troops over to Europe for
d-day the invasion of Europe which
turned the tide of the war the point I
want to make with that is we have the
people right here locally to make that
change if we can solve the problem that
saved our species and we can solve the
problem that brought an end to world war
two we can bring manufacturing back to
this country because right now the u.s.
we’re at a crossroads we used to be at a
country we used to be a country that
manufacture and export it and we’ve gone
to a country that manufactures some are
we mostly import and that needs to come
back to this area we have the people
right here
to do that we have the infrastructure I
know because I work with many of you
everyday I envision the Futurists in me
kind of envisions this place has become
in the Silicon Valley of the East Coast
now you may ask Brian how do we make
that happen well again here’s Brian’s
opinion I think one we need to work with
politicians
let’s levy tax laws to give tax breaks
and incentives to manufacturing
companies and technology companies
similar to the tax break should give the
churches we work with banks and venture
capitalists secure funding
secondly we work with you people the 35
pound brain people the problem solvers
to bring emerging and new technologies
to these manufacturing firms such as 3d
printing they will drive down costs of
manufacturing third pride we simply must
continue to take pride in our work
especially as manufacturers I remember
as a boy my mom used to work for the
General Electric television plant in
Suffolk Virginia can you believe we made
TVs in Suffolk Virginia and they ship
TVs all over the world and I remember
she would come home and tell us all the
TV she made and where they went she took
some pride in the fact that TV she put
her hands on went all over the world and
that’s the kind of pride we do you take
back it’s something about a physical
manifestation of something that was in
your mind or on paper that you
physically built I don’t care if it’s a
house or maybe a drawing your
four-year-old gives you they take pride
that they’ve done that that’s what we
need to break back to this area and we
can be a beacon for the rest of the
country now I want to pose a few
questions to you what has changed mean
to you do you resist change do you
welcome change
do you see change as opportunity maybe
you are the change we want to see in the
world I’m going to close with a quote as
we continue to grow and change we must
ensure that our technology does not
exceed our wisdom anyway thank you very
much
[Applause]
[Music]
you
thank you all very much for being here
I’m Brian Jordan innovator inventor some
say I’m a futurist but I’d like to think
of myself more as a professional day
dreamer in my perspective I think of
change as creating new ideas new ways of
doing things and an inventor you have to
be kind of part engineer part artist
part scientist even part historian so as
a student of history what I would like
to do is talk to you about today’s topic
from a historical perspective didn’t
give you a little background about me
and my experience then hopefully we’ll
tie it all together what change means
locally so let’s to go ahead and jump
right in what we have here is an image
of some early humans fending off an
attack from a saber-toothed tiger now
scientists have determined from looking
at our DNA that early humans once
numbered in the millions then their
numbers dwindled down to less than
10,000 on the entire planet that
dwindling was due in part to that uber
predator at the time the saber-tooth
Tiger they hunted us to the verge of
extinction well you may ask what
happened how did we go from that small
number in East Africa it’s at over 7
billion of us on a planet today that was
due to one our earliest of innovations
that you may have guessed discovery a
fire with the discovery of fire no
longer were our nights filled with fear
uncertainty nights were filled with
light sharing of new ideas new
innovations and of course my favorite
hot food it’s time we went on we come on
with new ideas new innovations that help
all of mankind some of our innovations
were not so great so what I would like
to do well in my perspective I think
that the best innovations came out
during the 20th century so I would like
to talk about two inventors
that have changed the way we live our
live in the 20th century the first
person is Garrett Morgan he came up with
the automatic traffic signal this was at
a time when automobiles were
infancy he witnessed an accident at an
intersection and he said there’s got to
be a better way to control traffic aside
from placing a policeman on every corner
so he came up with this idea however as
people we tend to resist change and
people took a particular offense to this
idea because at the time we thought we
didn’t need a device to tell us when it
stopped and when they go we’re smart we
can do that on our own but where would
we be without that traffic signal all of
us have used it this morning coming in
here the next person is probably one of
my favorites Philo Farnsworth he created
the automatic image pickup this was a
device that took images from a motion
picture camera and transferred it
electronically to a cathode ray tube
this was invented during a Golden Age of
Radio people certainly thought it was
neat it was cool it was high-tech but
what was the use of it it served no
purpose Philo even suggested that hey
you can take radio programs have actors
act them out and people could watch
those programs in the privacy of their
own home now this is the funny thing
people actually said this this came out
of their mouths they said Philo people
will never stare into a tube for hours
and hours and hours let me actually said
that now the interesting thing I want
you to realize about Philo Farnsworth is
he died in 1972 almost broke this guy
single-handedly invented television and
he died fighting lawsuit spending the
remainder of his day he’s fighting those
lawsuits from companies that stole his
ideas and made millions many of those
companies still making TVs today now Who
am I Who am I to talk to you about
change
I’m Brian Jordan graduated from virgin
Military Institute with a degree in
physics and mathematics I played
football all four years there and I
suffered three broken noses a concussion
and a bum ankle as a result of that one
of the funny stories about that when my
oldest son was standing right next to me
was little he told to my wife he said
you know I don’t believe dad played
college football and she says why he
said he had three broken noses and that
kind of impossible since he only had one
so anyway after graduation I work for an
environmental company as a chemist but
the military was always in my blood so I
decided to get commissioned a u.s. Navy
and I worked at navy as an aviator and I
phototype well anyway one of the things
I want you guys to realize about me
that’s important is at a very young age
I’ve always been an inventor I’ve always
looked at how we can change things and
make things better and what I want to do
is talk about our first product the
first product that we came up with I
came up with when I was in the sixth
grade it’s called a vortex generator and
what happens is it takes a vortex of air
or circular toroid that maintains
consistency on itself it can travel for
hundreds of feet you can knock over cups
blow out candles ruffle people’s hair it
was a neat little product that I made
years later when I get married my kids
were really young and I decided to build
one for them and they’re shooting each
other they’re shooting me to shooting my
wife they’re shooting the cat and those
of you know my wife no she’s very
business minded and she’s like wow we
could certainly market that product I
said you think yeah let’s do it
so we jumped in with both feet and we
went off the market this product now
simultaneously my time in the Navy was
coming to an end
I could either re-up or get out so I
decided to get out of the baby active
duty and go into Naval Reserve and we
dedicated full-time effort to marketing
this product that we called the arizuka
we were young we were kind of naive full
of vim and vinegar and we said how hard
could it be we’ll be millionaires inside
of six months right almost two years
later who were no closer to marketing
this advice when we started we had
reached our financial wit’s in we had
borrowed money from family friends and a
few fools and we’re about to throw in
the towel and this company in New York
at contact with us I said they were
interested in the product and they were
willing to manufacture market sell and
pay us a royalty today this product is
called the arizuka and we’ve sold
millions of these today not only that we
didn’t stop with the arizuka but we have
other products that we’re in a process
of make marketing now I’m going to stop
right here and I feel we need to talk
about the big pink elephant in the room
you guys are probably wondering what’s
up with this guy’s mess
pan and it’s okay
you know I come to terms years ago that
I would never become a hand model so let
me tell you that story it’s not as bad
as it looks it really isn’t a few years
ago I was working in my shop with my
youngest son and there was an old table
saw that was in a corner it was faulty
under it was faulty and I decided
against my better judgment to go ahead
and use this said saw and in doing so I
successfully managed to sever several
digits on my left hand now while I was
there my older son was all also there he
was 14 at the time and what book makes
me really proud of him as he went from a
crazy 14 year old with silly bands all
over his arm at the time to a
responsible adult within a matter of
second he sees me know gushing blood out
of my hand he says oh my gosh dad sit
down I’m gonna raise your hand and stop
the bleeding he put a towel around it he
managed to find my separate digits he
cleaned them off put him on ice called
911 and the paramedics came and took me
to the Baltimore hand center where they
were able to save my middle finger but
they want her to save the other two
because they were so badly mangled now
in doing this you know my wife told me
that my youngest son who witnessed the
accident was traumatized you know I
think I’d be traumatized too if I saw my
dad lose three fingers and the only
thing that calmed him down was my wife
told him that no don’t worry
your dad’s an inventor he’ll make some
new fingers better than his own okay
great so now now I have that work on so
as I heal you know I kind of forgot
about the fingers and he would always
nag me he was like dad what are you
gonna build your fingers I’m going I’ll
get to it Noah dad dad please you got to
work on your fingers I said okay I’ll
get to it so now I had marching orders
from an eight-year-old and we began to
work in the shop on some prosthetic
fingers now the first thing I did when I
got back to that lab was throw away that
old saw didn’t want to see that again
so what we have here are some 3d printed
versions along with some conceptual
drawings we have also what we did when
we were working on this we discovered
that there are millions of people
worldwide who are missing fingers one or
more digital you tease so we decided to
create a nonprofit organization where we
can help these people out and also
promote digital prosthetic awareness now
that’s enough about me what I want to do
is continue to talk about the topic at
hand I saw a commercial years ago with
Avery Brooks he’s Captain Sisko from
what’s that Star Trek Deep Space Nine
and every time I saw that commercial I
would almost draw something in my mind
and I’ll try to reenact a commercial as
best I can here’s a Avery Brooks
impersonation we’re in the 21st century
and we were promised flying cars where
other flying cars so whenever I saw that
commercial I would think hmmm well I
guess here they are this is our latest
project and we’re trying to create it’s
called the Pegasus the Pegasus is a
single pilot flying platform that flies
up to ten feet in the air of over any
obstacle it’s to be used by police fire
EMS
first responders or anyone else who
wants to go from point A to point B and
to be unencumbered by obstacles
currently was still a ways from a
working prototype where our goal is to
build these right here in Southern
Maryland now thank you
speaking of Southern Maryland and change
Southern Maryland is no stranger to
change since 1943 with the exception of
Naas Patuxent River this place has been
in steady state of change ever since
also in the early 1940s we were drawn
into the midst of World War two and at
that time the German Kriegsmarine and
particularly the u-boats controlled the
North Atlantic they eat for the most
part sank allied vessels at will and at
the time our country we’re using tactics
from World War one and we weren’t
successful then right here in this area
came new innovations in anti-submarine
warfare where we learn how to use sonar
to hunt track and detect these
submarines and it gave us control over
the North Atlantic which made it
possible for the US and Canada send
millions of troops over to Europe for
d-day the invasion of Europe which
turned the tide of the war the point I
want to make with that is we have the
people right here locally to make that
change if we can solve the problem that
saved our species and we can solve the
problem that brought an end to world war
two we can bring manufacturing back to
this country because right now the u.s.
we’re at a crossroads we used to be at a
country we used to be a country that
manufacture and export it and we’ve gone
to a country that manufactures some are
we mostly import and that needs to come
back to this area we have the people
right here
to do that we have the infrastructure I
know because I work with many of you
everyday I envision the Futurists in me
kind of envisions this place has become
in the Silicon Valley of the East Coast
now you may ask Brian how do we make
that happen well again here’s Brian’s
opinion I think one we need to work with
politicians
let’s levy tax laws to give tax breaks
and incentives to manufacturing
companies and technology companies
similar to the tax break should give the
churches we work with banks and venture
capitalists secure funding
secondly we work with you people the 35
pound brain people the problem solvers
to bring emerging and new technologies
to these manufacturing firms such as 3d
printing they will drive down costs of
manufacturing third pride we simply must
continue to take pride in our work
especially as manufacturers I remember
as a boy my mom used to work for the
General Electric television plant in
Suffolk Virginia can you believe we made
TVs in Suffolk Virginia and they ship
TVs all over the world and I remember
she would come home and tell us all the
TV she made and where they went she took
some pride in the fact that TV she put
her hands on went all over the world and
that’s the kind of pride we do you take
back it’s something about a physical
manifestation of something that was in
your mind or on paper that you
physically built I don’t care if it’s a
house or maybe a drawing your
four-year-old gives you they take pride
that they’ve done that that’s what we
need to break back to this area and we
can be a beacon for the rest of the
country now I want to pose a few
questions to you what has changed mean
to you do you resist change do you
welcome change
do you see change as opportunity maybe
you are the change we want to see in the
world I’m going to close with a quote as
we continue to grow and change we must
ensure that our technology does not
exceed our wisdom anyway thank you very
much
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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