Charles F. Kettering
 

If you are interested in reading a few of the speeches given by Charles F. Kettering, check out the link below.

Prophet of progress : selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering : Kettering, Charles Franklin, 1876-1958 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

You will have to sign up of an account on the Internet Archive website to read the book.

Kettering started out as a poor farm boy from Loudonville, Ohio before going on to Ohio State. After graduating, he worked at NCR and invented the electric cash register. Using the same principles for the electric cash register, he invented the electric starter for cars. In the end, he was a brilliant inventor in the first half of the twentieth century including founding DELCO and then becoming VP of Research at General Motors.

I was privileged to work at the Charles F. Kettering Laboratory in Yellow Springs, Ohio for a few years in the late '70s. During that time, I came across an old LP of a few of his speeches. On it, he made a comment that a student who fails one time out of 100 is considered a failure. As an inventor, if he succeeded one time out of 100, he was successful.