Joseph Gerber
These industries ranged from automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, clothing, and consumer electronics, to printing, sign making, cobbling, cartography, and lens crafting, among others.
He entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, New York on scholarship, and graduated two and one-half years later with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering.
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,[6] and became known as "the greatest engineering tool since the slide rule".
[7] 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.
"[5] 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.
NASA's Johnson Space Center later relied on Gerber's plotters for communications analysis and graphical data display for the first lunar landing, in 1969.
This technology was credited with integrating the engineering design function with the numerically controlled machine tools in the aircraft, automotive, and shipbuilding industries, dramatically improving cost and manufacture time.
[9] Electronics fabrication: photoplotting systems Gerber also invented and introduced a novel form of plotter that used a controlled beam of light instead of an ink-pen, to draw digital graphics directly on photographic film.
Gerber developed a numerically controlled machine (the GERBERcutter S-70) for cutting large quantities of tall stacks of cloth accurately—3,500 pieces for 50 men's suits in less than three minutes.
The GERBERcutter itself, which Gerber introduced in 1969, has been widely cited as the most important technological advance of the century, because it offered apparel factories significant savings in wasted cloth, which was the greatest cost factor in producing a garment, and because it enabled a computer-automated manufacturing system.
[13] Based on Gerber apparel-making technologies, the company went on to develop a line of computer integrated manufacturing systems to automate the production of furniture.
[14] In addition, among the company's introductions in the textile industry was the first direct-to-screen screen-setter, the first system to make screens for screen-printing directly from digital design data.
[14][15] In the 1980s, Gerber contemplated additive manufacturing strategies for making apparel, furniture, or shoes, including growing leather parts and spraying fabric-material onto molds.
[16] Gerber's impact on the modern history of printing ranged from the technologies in plotting, photoplotting, computer graphics, and pattern-making to additional novel innovations in sign-making, engraving, billboard-printing, stripping, silkscreen mask-cutting, screen-setting, and plate-setting.
This system managed the whole digital workflow of a printing operation and addressed all aspects of prepress production, from pre-flight, trapping, and imposition to RIPing and archiving.
Workstations and software, plotters and routers take the sign making process automatically from the design and layout through production and cutting.The company's innovations extended outdoor advertising by developing the first grand format digital printer in 1978.
The product is of such quality of color and fidelity to underlying artwork that a universal demand for our company to produce advertising displays throughout the world was created.
In addition, under Gerber's leadership, the company fostered the development of innovations in machine tools and medical, cryogenic, defense, and anti-terrorism products through its partially owned subsidiaries.
