Profiles: Stan Ovshinsky

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They call Stanford R. Ovshinsky "father of the nickel metal hydride battery" and he doesn't deny it. "I not only invented it but I also brought it to the market place, which is even more important."

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inventing stage of his NiMH career was in the 1970s; setting up a company and producing Ovonic NiMH batteries came in the 1980s. Now Stan's technology is licensed to many companies that manufacture more than one billion of the non-polluting batteries annually for wrist watches, hearing aids, cameras, telephones, commercial buildings, and both hybrid and pure electric vehicles. Look in a dictionary or a chemistry or physics handbook and you'll find Ovonic as well as the Ovshinsky Effect "by which a specific glassy thin film switches from a nonconductor to a semiconductor upon application of a minimum voltage." His pioneering work in "amorphous and disordered materials" began in 1955 when "I put ten different elements into one electrode and no one thought that was possible or necessary." He has won many awards, including Heroes of Chemistry 2000 for both him and his wife, Iris, from the American Chemical Society. "I feel good about that one."

Born in Akron, Ohio, in 1922, Stan helped his father collect scrap iron while he was growing up, "the hardest job I ever had." With just a trade school education, he admits, "I didn't like school but I loved learning, and now I have honorary doctorates and have worked with several Nobel Laureates." He jokes that he "married his Ph.D." (Iris, a biochemist) who helped him start Ovonic Battery Company in Detroit in 1960.

Now president and CEO of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., in suburban Detroit, Stan also holds top positions in joint ventures involving batteries, solar systems, fuel cells, and even building materials with Texaco, General Electric, Intel, and other companies worldwide. "I'm proud we have low turnover rates," he says. "We treat everybody as if they were Ph.Ds."