Shelton's patents have had an impact relating to home washing machines and the preparation of food in both the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry and fine dining.

[6] Shelton's career at General Electric began in 1948 as an engineer in the GE Home Laundry facility in Trenton, New Jersey.

His inventions helped create and refine the modern, top-loading, rotating spiral agitator clothes washer.

[19] Shelton's self-filtering fryer allowed KFC restaurants to continuously fry multiple batches of chicken without interruption.

According to Fred Jeffries, the chain's vice president of purchasing at the time: "Stores were doing about $200,000 a year in sales on average with the pots .

[4] Colonel Sanders asked Shelton to invent a better way to hold just fried KFC chicken so the crust would not get soggy as the food was held for sale.

[27] According to Nathan Myhrvold, founder of The Cooking Lab, "... the CVap provides better temperature stability than any ordinary oven or holding cabinet does".

Working through George Bemis, Shelton's Advertising and Promotion Manager, a series of letters were sent to Rockwell, starting in March, 1973.

Rockwell initially refused, saying "…my schedule is completely filled for a year and a half, so it would just be impossible for me to do a portrait of Colonel Sanders".

When Rockwell said "we must bear in mind that I am 79", Bemis responded "Colonel Harland Sanders is eighty-three years young and going strong.

[31] Coomes' synopsis of the book mentions "Four decades before Winston Shelton began creating revolutionary foodservice equipment, he was tinkering with junkyard castoffs to make a working underwater exploration helmet, a gasoline powered child's wagon, and a rudimentary sawmill—all before he was in high school.

In the process, Shelton became a practical problem solver whose own intuition refined and created some of the most influential machines ever built.

In this inspiring book, the entrepreneurial creator of Winston Industries tells a story of working on the Manhattan Project, becoming a groundbreaking G.E.

[26] Having stepped down as CEO of Winston Industries, Shelton continued to head the Advanced Engineering department at the company until his death.

Shelton was interviewed in June 2016 by a team of French journalists about his friendship and business relationship with Colonel Sanders and his invention of the Collectramatic fryer for KFC.

The 90 minute documentary, "Inside KFC : Au coeur d'un géant du fast food (Inside KFC: In the heart of a fast food giant)" was first broadcast on September 14, 2016, as part of the French television news magazine "Focus", hosted by Guy Lagache, on the Groupe Canal+ C8 Network.

[35] Shelton was interviewed in May 2018 by Louisville television station WHAS-TV (ABC affiliate) reporter Sara Wagner as part of "Characters of Kentuckiana".

In the profile, Geist quoted Shelton's philosophy of life: “Innovating for the sake of others is how we pay our rent for our time on Earth.