Al Gross Obit



January 6, 2001


BOB GARFIELD: Welcome back to NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. The man who took electronic conversations on the road has died. From rachet-jawing CB fans to walking and talking cell phone users, Al Gross had an incalculable impact on the way we communicate. From WCPN in Cleveland, David C. Barnett has this appreciation of the Man Who Made the World Wireless. [RINGING]
DAVID C. BARNETT: Every time you hear that sound, you can thank - or curse - Alfred J. Gross. Electrical engineer Ted Rappaport got his first inkling of Al Gross's historical significance ten years ago at a radio conference in St. Louis. The 70 year old inventor invited Rappaport up to his room where he opened up a suitcase full of electronic gadgets. There was a prototype walkie-talkie from the 1930's and a 1950's vintage short wave receiver that would fit in the palm of your hand -- an assortment of devices developed decades before they went into popular use!
TED RAPPAPORT: Well, Al was a real tinkerer and had such an enthusiasm and love for discovery and creativity.
DAVID C. BARNETT: Ted Rappaport runs the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group at Virginia Tech University, and he says Al Gross's patents form the basis for most portable communications today. Some of those patents go back to his days as a teenage hobbyist in a Cleveland basement. Gross went on to study electrical engineering at what is now Case Western Reserve University and was later commissioned by the government to adapt his walkie-talkie concept for military use!
TED RAPPAPORT: Afterwards, with government funding to develop his ideas, he realized that there could be a consumer market for hand held personal communications, and he was able to lobby the commissioner of the FCC to create what became the first citizens' band. [CLIP OF CB RADIO SONG PLAYS] MAN: Breaker 1 9 this is Rubber Duck. You got a copy on me [Bleep Man ?] ? Come on.
DAVID C. BARNETT: After laying the groundwork for the citizens band culture of the 1970s, Al Gross developed another wireless wonder!
TED RAPPAPORT: Al designed what I believe is the first paging system in the world in Long Island Jewish Hospital back in 1950-1951.
DAVID C. BARNETT: In an interview last spring, Al Gross recalled that the doctors wanted nothing to do with his paging invention! AL GROSS: Because it would disturb their golf game or it would disturb the patient, so it wasn't suc--a success as I thought it would be when it was first introduced, but that changed later.
DAVID C. BARNETT: There are now 45 million pagers in use in the United States alone! You can also credit the growing number of cell phones to the early patents of Al Gross. And then, there's the story that Al liked to tell about an invention that made the comic pages. Ted Rappaport says this tale has become legendary.
TED RAPPAPORT: He had come up with a little radio receiver that he put on a wrist watch strap, and what I understand from Al is that the creator of the Dick Tracy cartoon, Chester Gould, wanted to go visit Al and see what his wrist watch communicator was, and shortly thereafter Dick Tracy was wearing a communicator wrist watch in the Dick Tracy comic strip.
DAVID C. BARNETT: In recent years, Al Gross was a senior engineer for the Chandler, Arizona branch of Orbital Sciences Corporation where he directed research in aerospace and satellite systems. His enthusiasm for creativity and invention didn't flag until the last few weeks of his life when cancer finally claimed him in late December at the age of 82. [AL GROSS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD CLIP PLAYS] [APPLAUSE] MAN: Al -- it's that time -- come on up.
DAVID C. BARNETT: Just 8 months earlier he had received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. AL GROSS: I'm having a whale of a good time here! [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHS] This is a peak in my career. 6 - 2 Even over and out. [LAUGHTER] Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
DAVID C. BARNETT: Of course, one might make the claim that it was a mixed legacy to be the Father of beepers, cell phones and other devices that keep us constantly connected. But Al Gross knew you could always use the off switch. For On the Media, I'm David C. Barnett in Cleveland.