His achievements include a system for innovation, as well as leadership in amicable labor relations, and major roles in aviation and rocketry.

[2] Daniel Guggenheim was sent to Switzerland as a young man to study the Swiss lace and embroidery business, and to serve as a buyer for his father's import firm.

Daniel helped to establish the Guggenheim mining and smelting business in Mexico, which by 1895 was earning profits of $1 million a year.

[3] In 1891 his father, Meyer, consolidated about a dozen of the family's mining operations into the Colorado Smelting and Refining Company.

[3] Daniel was a member of the National Security League, the driving force for moving the then-neutral USA into World War I, which was headed by J.P.

[7] During WWI, Daniel's son Harry Guggenheim became a pilot and both became avid supporters of aviation technology.

15 aircraft were entered of which only two, the American Curtiss Tanager and the British Handley Page Gugnunc met the requirements.

The Curtiss Tanager was awarded as the winner in dubious circumstances, and then Handley Page sued Curtiss for unlicensed use of Handley Page slats, and worse, neither of the finalists saw production or service afterwards; however, indirectly, the competition influenced designers in building safer aircraft.