Charles Kettering was an American inventor, an engineer and a businessman. He was also the holder of 140 patents, many of them still working today. He invented the electrical starting motor for the modern car engine – and he invented Freon which is used in refrigeration and air conditioning. He was head of research for General Motors for 27 years from 1920 to 1947, and his inventions made him a very wealthy man. But his heart was in the right place and he went on to help found the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre – he believed American industrial research techniques could be applied to cancer research. From this, I can only assume he was one of the good guys – but one thing I know –  he had lots of common sense, he is credited with this quote:

“If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.”

We all go out to work each day (if we are lucky) and we meet wonderful people. In our line of business we meet new clients all the time and work together on design projects – but when I hear the “committee” word I get the hee-bee-gee-bees. When someone says “I’ll run that by the committee” they might as well say “I’ll run that under a double decker bus”. If you want to get the best from any situation, in any line of business, nominate the person most capable to do the job and let them at it. Committees kill ideas.

In case you’re wondering why there’s a camel advertising this post… A camel was the animal designed by a committee.

Read all about him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Kettering