Helicopter

Wait a minute, you say: wasn't Sikorsky the inventor? Well, Bell Helicopter project engineer Thomas J. Harriman '42 and his upstart team beat the older Sikorsky firm to the world's first helicopter production certificate in April 1946 for their Bell Model 47. It was a good invention, too; production ran for 26 years. Harriman went on to become a successful businessman. As senior technical officer of Conrac, a small avionics company, he helped boost its worth from $1 million to $200 million.

The Bellteam gottheir chopper off theground first.