Tell me about the most interesting person you've ever met...
 

And I'll tell you about who I met and now have as a customer.....

Due to non-disclosure, I can only list off a few things. His company:

Built all moving dinosaurs for all Jurassic Park movies.
Built & installed 1/4 mile worth of water cannons and lights for the Bilaggio in Vegas that operate within MM parameters
Built and sold patent for bionic suits to the military
Built & sold patent on drug injection pumps
Makes all moving animated parts for Disney
Makes robotic hands for deep water exploration
Made smallest color video camera, focus and aperture, thickness of pencil lead
Developed robotic prosthetic arm
Made the Ford robot from the ad campaign, saw it today
Several other military weapons I shouldn't even point out. Has several prototypes of rocket engines and self powered arsenal.
Developed the bionic arm that responds to your arm's movements remotely

In his personal collection of 'cool stuff' he has:

Plutonium powered artificial heart pump
Prototype trigger mechanism for thermal nuclear device
Ford robot
Billagio water cannon to be used in his next house
Bionic suit and arms
Many rocket engines, movie firearms
Rocket engine from 2nd stage of Saturn V Apollo 14 (600psi fuel pressure)
Giant sandstone sample from under the Panama canal when excavated for testing to see if small nuclear blasts could cut new canal
Single lung compression engines
A mill, lathe, and 2 or 3 computerized CNC machines that are sitting collecting dust I can use anytime
Civil war prosthetic with knife, fork, spoon, and hook
10"x5" piece of steel from the World Trade Center. Said he's never seen steel tear like that. I got to hold it. Felt sad.
More than I can remember....it will take a few trips........

Great guy!

Imho
 

Maybe I was in awe but had a long chat on the patio of the hotel at Amelia Island with Dan Gurney. I was leaving the next day after a business meeting and he had come in that day for the Concours. When he learned I was from Charlotte we discussed at length the similarities with the post war car culture cottage industry in SoCal and how Charlotte had a similar culture with all the race teams and support industry clustered here. He was funny, engaging, bright and charming. I waited my entire life to meet the guy and certainly was not disappointed. When you consider the evolution in motor racing that he not only witnessed but helped propel, it is quite remarkable.

Laurence McKinley Gould - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Glaciology professor at the U of A in the early 1970s. He lived in Wilson WY. (in Jackson Hole) in the summer, our home since 1975, after moving from Tucson. First geologist to ever visit Antarctica. A fascinating, funny, humble, and kind gentleman!

Zuffenhausen Lounge ( happy hour after 17:00 somewhere ) - 986 Forum - for Porsche Boxster Owners and Others

Just to make using "search this forum" easier

Agreed. Not trying to be a buzzkill, but there is a place...

Doesn't really bother me personally, but it could get cluttered if everyone did this.

Billy Idol - Chatted with him for a while at a bar in Las Vegas, not that interesting

Connie Chung - Breakfast after a night of partying, somewhat interesting.

Mira Slovak - Flew across the Atlantic twice, Germany to California, in a single engine 30hp 1200 cc vw engine Fournier RF4D. I fly the sister ship that was to cross as well but never did. Raced Hydroplanes for Boing Corp.
Escaped checkslovakia while under communist rule......fascinating.

Fournier RF4D N1700 Mira Slovak, Twirty-Six Horsepower Over the Atlantic

My wife.

_________

Wow - Tony Stark is a customer of yours - I'm impressed!!

Interesting people I've met: Harry Chapin, Gary Doer, Allan Rock, and I met Santa a few times when i was a kid.

Two notable
IRL weekend at Watkins Glen a few years ago, actually I believe it as the last year they ran there. I sat at the grill in the infield with Mario Andretti and Marcos crew cheif and had lunch with them.

2004 at Steam Boat Springs CO. Skied with Billy Kid in a get aquainted with the mountain tour.

Carroll Shelby, I'll never forget my 2nd day working at Shelby American. I walked downstairs into the shop where they used to make Shelby wheels in the late '60's. There he stood, a month before his 75th birthday, 3rd heart working like it should. He stuck out his hand & said "Hi I'm Carroll Shelby." I was speechless for a couple seconds as I shook the biggest hand I had ever shaken. I had long thought of "Shelby" being a race car or company, yet the actual man that started it all stood before me, proudly proclaiming that he was the true Shelby!
A common chicken farmer from rural east Texas becomes one of the best race car drivers in the world in the late '50's. Heart problems convince him to retire from driving race cars in 1959, so he decides to start building his own race cars & becomes the best in the world again!

Jake Raby, maybe you've heard of this guy too. I first "heard" of him here on this forum in 2008 when he posted information he was discovering about our IMSB & his new IMSB. In Oct. 2009 Jake posted in this forum he would teach a 3 day class on how to rebuild & upgrade our M96 engines with specialized tools he helped design. I am normally a very conservative person, but I had been wanting to do this to my engine for a long time. Since there were no better options available, based on my sense of Jake's character gleaned from his generous posts in this forum, I made the pilgrimage to Raby Hill in the "sticks" of GA. What I found was a self made man with a lifelong fascination & aptitude for things mechanical, making things the right way with little regard for the cost. Basically exactly as under advertised.

I fear that men like these will be extinct soon and that is why I find them so interesting.

recently, an almost 90 year old Church Pastor who has worked all over the world.
He is more lucid at his age than most people I know at 50.
He was in Europe during WWII and was telling me stories about Hitler and the Nazis as someone who was actually there! And he still drives a car and has been married to his wife for 60 something years.

I guess the best I've got is meeting Hurley Haywood. Didn't get to talk to him at length, but he was a pretty nice guy though.

Maybe Tony engineered the stuff or headed things up but this guy is Steve J. Owner of all the patents and parent companies that sold divisions to Raytheon and such. He's the top man.

Ayerton Senna at British Grand Prix, in the good old days when you COULD have a pit walk and the sport was both approachable and interesting, not mega expensive and with no chance of getting near the cars let alone the drivers.
Fantastic bloke and defo down to earth. RIP

Mods are free to move this.

Dan Weldon and Scott Speed (Dan with lady friends) in a hot tub on a race weekend. I was very much the annoying third wheel. But it was cool and both chaps were more than patient with me for asking 'racing fan' questions. God Bless Dan. My wife was friends with him before I met her....really good guy.

Charles Lindbergh. I worked at Pan Am back in the early seventies. He happened to just stop in to the reservations department that day to say hello. Didn't speak with him much, but he was a royal presence! Also had a chat with Alfred Hitchcock one hung-over Saturday morning. He was confirming his flight to London. I didn't believe it was him at first, but sure enough, it was!

Sorry I need to update my photo I give out when meeting people!

Neil Armstrong, considering how private he was I consider myself very lucky.

Mario Andretti clipped me on a scooter at Road America when i was a little kid. Apparently he has a history of reckless scooter driving. My father seized the moment to deliver the perfect line and shouted out "hey who do you think you are? Mario Andretti?" True story

Good one.
I was at a race one weekend and he came darting past me in a huge hurry trying to get into this restricted area where the transports were and the 19 year-old security guard in in the three sizes two big blazer stopped him dead in his tracks and demanded his credentials. I was impressed that he didn't give him the old "do yo know who I am?!!"
Instead he threw everything out of his pockets trying to find the pass that wasn't in his lanyard apparently. He found it and ran down the road like he was in an F1 car again.
I started laughing and asked the kid if he knew who that was. He looked at me blankly when I said "Mario Andretti the last American F1 World Champion".

Mine was the man that followed him...Buzz Aldrin. I don't know if he is the most interesting, but certainly the most "famous" interesting.

He was a neighbor for a few years, and a really nice guy. He hated people that think/say the moon landing was a hoax. He wanted to meet them and punch them in the face.

He had a really nice convertible 450SL with "MOON AGN" as his license. Man that was a long time ago.

I also got to meet Buzz & unfortunately his wife Lois. It was outside a Oscar party, Buzz didn't talk much but his wife more than made up for it. I was amazed & glad to see all the attention Buzz got from the paparazzi!

When I was a kid I flew from LAX to MCI (Kansas City) and sat by Ernest Borgnine (an actor for you young ones out there) I thought he was just some older guy and didn't understand that he was famous at the time. When we were getting off the plane, people were pointing and commenting. I thought they were looking at me! This was in the 70s.

The most interesting person I've met is Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven Life).

For someone who has a book that has sold more copies than any other book in print outside of the Bible, he is a very grounded person and very nice to be around too. He gives away something like 95% of his royalties, which is his only source of income, and doesn't have any interest in material possessions.

I'm afraid all that wealth would go to my head and I'd have a 12 car garage...

I've met a bunch of famous people too, but they weren't interesting in person... just famous. For example, I sat next to Robert Englund (Freddie Krueger) on a plane years ago and he was a complete jerk and I wasn't asking him fan-type questions because I had no idea who he was.

Jerry Bruno
 

Jerry was a blue collar worker from Wisconsin who got involved in local politics. He then worked in state politics, and ultimately in a variety of national campaigns to include both JFK and RFK. Despite not having finished high school he had an incredibly sharp mind for politics and was an exemplary advance man. Along with Jeff Greenfield he wrote the book, "The Advance Man." As a political science under graduate in the early 70's I was fortunate to take two courses which he taught at the State University of New York at Oswego. I learned more about real politics from Jerry than from all my other professors combined. A great guy. Down to earth, and always willing to share his vast knowledge and experiences on several national campaigns.

As a student I worked in the Prime Ministers Office in Canada...met all kinds of people from Wayne Gretzky, to the Sutherlands, Bono, Royalty, Presidents etc. But the most interesting person was Nelson Mandela...what an incredible man, it had a lasting effect on me.

Vikram Pandit - ex CEO of Citigroup. Sat next to me at our building in Jacksonville with his security detail. Really a normal dude worth hundreds of millions and at that time was in such a bad spot in the news. Knowing what responsibility he had vs what I had was funny when I thought about it. Nice guy though.

Rick Warren, yay! Rick Rocks. I only give away about 15% of my income before taxes but I'm working on it. :)
I've met Erland Van Lideth, at a High School summer Wrestling camp, he used to be an Olympic wrestler and was an Engineer, as am I...He was humble and cool.
Bill Johnson...pastor of Bethel fellowship in CA.
My adoptive father who took me and my sister on with my Mom when I was 4.
My biological father that left me when I was less than a year old.
A couple of modern astronauts, including robonaut.
The real Dr. that the TV series "Quincy MD" was modeled after.
Walter Mondale
Ned Overrend
Ruthie Matthess
My boss...he always has a great "sage" piece of advice to put a positive spin on the daily work grind. What a great person.

Phil Hill, Ferrari factory driver & 1st American World Champion driver. I took Saleen's entry to Road&Track's "Fastest Car made in America 1995" to the Firestone test track in Stockton TX. Phil Hill was the topspeed driver for all the cars. (Saleen 351 SR, Hennessy Viper, Lingenfelter Firebird Formula, Doug Rippey ZR1 Corvette, Vortech Engineering Z28 Camaro)
6 Years later I was lucky enough to deliver a new MBZ S class to Phil at his home in Santa Monica to drive to Pebble Beach, when I arrived at his house he was prepping his 1935 ish? PierceArrow for display at Pebble. It had won Best-in-show in 1955. Currently on "Chasing Classic Cars" Wayne Carrini goes to this same house that was built by Phil's Father, & drives the PierceArrow. The PierceArrow was bought new by Phil's Family. About 5 years ago I attended Phil Hill's funeral at a church near his house.
His longtime friend Carroll Shelby was there, a Cobra was parked in front of the church along with several other notable classic cars.


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