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H. (Heinz) Joseph Gerber (April 17, 1924 – August 8, 1996) was an American inventor and businessman. An Austrian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor who immigrated in 1940, he pioneered computer-automated manufacturing systems for an array of industries. Described as the “Thomas Edison” of manufacturing, he was one of the first to recognize and develop the productivity-enhancing potential for computer automation in skill-intensive industrial sectors. His work in this field grew from his early developments of graphical-numerical computing devices, data-reduction tools, and plotters. He was awarded America’s National Medal of Technology, the country’s highest recognition in technology and innovation, in 1994, for his “technical leadership in the invention, development and commercialization of manufacturing automation systems for a wide variety of industries.” These industries ranged from automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, clothing, and consumer electronics, to printing, sign making, cobbling, cartography, and lens crafting, among others. == Early life == Gerber was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria and showed an early fascination with technology. By age eight, he had built radios and developed magnetic circuit breakers to preserve his batteries. Following Germany’s 1938 Anschluss, he was imprisoned in a Nazi labor camp, eventually to be released. In 1940, he fled with his mother, immigrating as a destitute to New York City and soon thereafter Hartford, Conn. to work in the tobacco fields. His father would not survive the Holocaust in Europe. In Hartford, Gerber completed high school in just two years while learning English and holding down full-time and part-time jobs. He entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY on scholarship, and graduated two and one-half years later with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering. In his junior year, he invented the Gerber Variable Scale, a graphical-numerical computing device that he conceived from the elastic waistband of his pajamas. Receiving a $3,000 investment, Gerber patented his Variable Scale and founded the Gerber Scientific Instrument Company in Hartford, Conn. to produce and market the device. Before the widespread use of digital computers, performing computations based on graphically recorded data and curves was extremely time-consuming and complex. The Gerber Variable Scale—which used a triangular calibrated spring as a computing element to eliminate all scaling and conversions between numerics and graphics—provided means for quick, efficient calculations, and became known as the greatest engineering tool since the slide rule. Gerber’s early life and accomplishments in America were the subject of the 1950 Broadway play ''Young Man in a Hurry,'' written by Morton Wishengrad and starring Cornel Wilde. In 1953, J. Robert Oppenheimer and other judges selected Gerber as one of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Ten Most Outstanding Young Men in America.”〔 Reflecting on his immigrant experience, Gerber would observe that he “learned that in USA it was true you could accomplish things if you were willing to work because then people, recognizing not only your abilities but your earnestness, will give you of themselves beyond belief to help you.”〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Joseph Gerber」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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