Birth of an Air (1910) & Science City (1941)

DOODLING AN AIR CITY & A CIRCUS OF INVENTION

In 1930, the largest construction project undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since the Panama Canal was Randolph Air Force Base. Designed as an “Air City,” by Lt Harold Clark, a dispatch officer at Kelly AFB, the doodles would become home to US pilot instructor training and combat systems officer training in 2012. By 1935, there were more airplanes in the sky above San Antonio than anywhere in the world.

Randolph Field - Air City

Image - Airfield Database

After World War II, Tom and Earl Slick would hire Dee Howard as a mechanic and would and Chester Chiodo as chief test pilot for Slick Airways, Inc. In March 1946, using Curtiss C-46s, the fledgling company would become the country's most successful all air freight operator (U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, A History of Air Freight). An early run at a kind of Federal Express (Chiodo, interview), the company would spawn an aviation pioneer and a high tech entrepreneur.

Chester went on to found Netcore and to partner with Scott McNealy and the Sun Micro Systems team building the mini computer market that would later split into the PC market. His son, Roger, would create an early wireless hand-held system for stock market traders that would be ruled by the SEC to provide an unfair advantage. After several runs at the Mini, PC, LAN, Wireless Modem and Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) markets, Chester decided in 1991 to focus on his Agri-Energy business pioneering side-ways drilling in the 1980's--a key to unlocking Shale “fracking” today.

In 1947, Dee Howard founded Howard Aero, Inc. His high tech start-up converted the Lockheed B-34/PV-1 Venturas into executive transports for the private market. Dee's modifications were known as the Ventura 250, 350 and 500. By designing within existing structures Howard was able to save cost but make major design changes that completely altered the characteristic performance of the planes. (Cummings, flightsimonline.com)

Dee Howard, pictured at his office just west of San Antonio International Airport.

Image - Airport Journals

Howard helped Lear Jet off the ground safely by designing the "wings" and reverse thrusters for Lear (Cummings,flightsimonline.com). Dee's advertising read: If you don't have Dee Howard Thrust Reversers, what's stopping you? (Airport Journal, Dee Howard: What's Stopping You?, March 2003) Howard is exemplary of the San Antonio entrepreneurial model--inventive, thrifty, light-hearted and pioneering (Airport Journals).

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Tom Slick volunteered for the U.S. Navy and was commissioned as a lieutenant in September 1942. It was during this time that he was to make a decision that would shape the future of his dreams for humanity and ensure their success. (TIBR)

While in the South Pacific, he came across an old 1937 Reader's Digest article on the Armour Research Foundation of Chicago, then headed by Dr. Vagtborg, who would later become the first president of the Institute. In the article, Dr. Vagtborg was quoted as saying: “We can improve anything.” When asked about the story, Dr. Vagtborg claimed he was misquoted, because what he actually said was, “Anything can be improved.” Nevertheless, Mr. Slick later said it was then and there that he decided he was going to recruit Dr. Vagtborg to assist him in developing his research institutions. (TIBR)

In 1941, Tom Slick Junior founded the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (Now TBRI). In 1947, he founded the Southwest Research Institute, a Science City, on the old Cable Ranch. Both institutes are philanthropic gifts to humanity.

Founder Tom Slick with the first president of the Institute, Dr. Harold Vagtborg at stride in their science city in San Antonio, TX.

IMAGE - TIBR

Slick was a progressive visionary, his designs for how science and technology can promote peace and education are still spiraling in time like an impossible perpetual motion machine. TIBR's web site tells his story of entrepreneurial zeal:

The conventional wisdom was that Mr. Slick's dream was wishful thinking on a grand scale because San Antonio did not have a university with graduate education, an extensive library system, or a major industrial complex to support an institute of applied research. “It was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” one skeptic duly noted. However, Mr. Slick did not believe it.

Undeterred in his quest to see his vision succeed, Tom Slick surrounded himself with strong business advisers and friends who became the board of the Institute. A significant step forward came in the late 1950s, when the Institute moved to its current location at Military Drive and constructed a modern laboratory building.

After Reader's Digest published an article in 1949 on Tom Slick and the Institute for Inventive Research, another organization he founded, the institute was soon overwhelmed with inventions from around the world. The response was so great that Mr. Slick had to rent a circus tent that functioned as a processing center for the incoming inventions.

At one point, more than 1,000 inventions were pouring in per week. Ultimately, more than 100,000 inventions were received and processed, of which about 114 were viewed as viable and pursued. After IIR was incorporated into a division of Southwest Research Institute in 1953, it was phased out a year later. (TIBR)

Slick was perhaps one of the world’s first high tech social entrepreneurs. His adventures in the world of crypto zoology hunting the great unexplained mysteries and monsters of the 20th century, would shape his special brand of quiet, reserved and yet pioneering character. He tracked the Sasquatch in North America, Loch Ness in the Scottish Highland lochs, and the Yeti in Nepal and deep into the Himalayas.

The true story as told by Slick’s niece, Catherine Nixon Cooke, in the book Tom Slick Mystery Hunter, 2005. The book profiles the legendary exploits of Texas multi-millionaire Tom Slick who would ultimately create five scientific research foundations, new species of cattle and grasses, major oil operations, two books on world peace before he died at 46 years old in 1962. (Book Description). With a bit more intrigue, Lauren Coleman abandons all in the 2002 book Tom Slick: True Life Encounter in Cryptozoology. The book includes the story of Slick’s creation of a scientific research facility near the Loch Ness mystery and the story of Slick’s stepfather’s abduction by George “Machine Gun” Kelly in 1933.

Tom Slick was featured as a freckled, all-American, race car-driver, in a 6-7 minute cartoon segment, on ABC, between 1967-1970. The lead into the program sings: “Tom Slick, Tom Slick.... There’s no such thing as failure.” The character Slick competed in a vehicle called the “Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper,” that he transformed prior to every race: forming vehicles including a submarine, hot air balloon, motorized skateboard, road racers and other exotic race vehicles. (Cartoon Scrapbook)

Tom Slick Cartoon: Bad Year Blimp Race

Tom Slick was an advocate of world peace, publishing Permanent Peace: A Check and Balance Plan advocating a global peace-keeping force in 1958. He funded the Tom Slick World Peace lectures at the Lendon B. Johnson Library and the Tom Slick Professorship of World Peace at the University of Texas Austin (Wikipedia, Tom_Slick). He is an archetype of San Antonio entrepreneurship. Similar to Dee Howard, he was affable, he had a sense of humor and he was very, very committed to the pursuit of the possible. Slick died tragically at the age of 46 in an airplane crash October 6, 1962 in pursuit of mystery. In his last will and testament, Slick described his life's work and legacy:

“It has always been my intention to work towards the building up of a great center for human progress through scientific research at our Southwest Research Center. I would like this effort to grow to be as big as it soundly can, and at the same time to embrace as wide a range of scientific research as is practical. Equally, if not more important than size and scope, should be the efforts to achieve the highest quality of accomplishment.” (Texas Biomed)

In 1948, Col. Harry Armstrong convened a panel to discuss Aeromedical Problems of Space Travel at the School of Aviation Medicine. Efforts of the school were the catalyst for America's manned space program. In 2009, the bio-life-health industry had an $18.9 billion economic impact in 2009, representing 17.2% of the workforce in the Alamo city (Greater Chamber of Commerce). Growing from the seeds of Army encampments in the 1800's, Army aviation medicine, Air Force Space Medicine, and now public health and war time investments in care for soldiers San Antonio is a medical and scientific center of innovation.

Also in 1948, the Air Force Security Service was founded in the city. This investment by the War Department at the foundation of the Air Force seeded a world-class aerospace, telecommunications and information technology security sector in the city 64 years ago. The information technology and security cluster in San Antonio would become the key to the city's future as computers are the foundation of all commerce, education, work, industrial infrastructure, science and technology R&D and utilities necessary to sustain 21st century life. San Antonio's cyber legacy begins in 1948 and continues to grow today. These two science and technology foundational investments provide a catalyst to the city’s 2012 emergence as a world class science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research, development and commercialization center.

The science and technology foundation provided by early developments in medicine, aviation, Man on the Moon, and science technology R&D in the city, and the tremendous early lead provided by scientific R&D from SwRI and TIBR, create a trajectory for city’s 2012 emergence as a world class science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research, development and commercialization center.

In 2010, his Southwest Research Institute performed $548 million in contract research for industry, government, military and education projects and the TIBR is on the verge of great breakthroughs for humanity in the fields of genetics, genomics, immunology and bio-medicine. Both the Texas Institute for Biomedical Research (TIBR) and Southwest Research Institute are world-class research and development organizations that have fulfilled the Tier 1 research status of the city for over four decades. Today, SwRI occupies 1,200 acres of land and 2 million square feet of laboratories. In 2011, SwRI conducted $581 million in contract research and development.

SwRI, Aerial Photos of SwRI Campus and Overlay Maps of Small Robotic Vehicle Test Bed

Image - SWRI

In 2012, the Texas Biomedical Research Institute houses the world's largest genetic and genomic cloud computing center at “The Ranch.” Home to the largest primate colony in the world, the biomedical institute is leading the transition from live animal research to computer modeling ultimately enabling the phase out of many live animal programs.

Texas Institute for Biomedical Research (formally, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research)

IMAGE - Westover Hills