bridge to normal cardiac function. In one of medical history’s great
moments, Lillehei turned to the young engineer, Earl Bakken.
Earl Bakken and his brother-in-law, Palmer Hermundslie, had founded a
company in 1949 to maintain and repair electronic equipment in the
Minneapolis area hospitals, but in their first month had only $8 to show
for their efforts (the servicing of a centrifuge).^8 In the burgeoning field of
electronics and transistors, these handymen figured that someone would
need to fix all the gadgets in the hospitals around town. Earl was a
Minneapolis native, and after graduating high school in 1941, enlisted in
the Army Signal Corps and became a radar instructor and maintenance
technician. His lifelong interest in home electronics logically led him to a
military posting in the field, and even in his nineties, Earl says that he
finds “a deep, almost inexpressible joy in the sight, sound, feel, and even
smell of old radios, machines, and electrical equipment. There is a magic
about those devices that a person can appreciate only when he knows them
inside and out, and when he loves them not only for what they do, but how
they do it.”^9 This sentiment recalls Steve Jobs and every entrepreneurial
tinkerer, and proves the point that almost all innovators are “garage guys”
who can’t stop turning over an idea in their mind and fabricating the
solution with their own hands.
Upon returning to Minnesota at the conclusion of the war, Earl Bakken
attended the University of Minnesota and earned undergraduate and
master’s degrees in electrical engineering. All who knew Earl were not
surprised with his career choice, being a child prodigy with gadgets and
models. As a young boy, Earl saw the movie, Frankenstein, and was
captivated with the life-giving power of electricity. He later recalled, “I
was simply awestruck by the fact that electricity, properly applied, could
do a great deal more than light up a room or ring a doorbell. I realized that
electricity defines life. When electricity flows, we’re alive. When it
doesn’t, we’re dead.”^10
While Earl Bakken was completing his coursework at the university, he
would often walk across the street to the academic hospital, forming
relationships with the scientists and technicians whose jobs were
increasingly dependent upon electronic equipment. This led to the
formation of Earl’s company in 1949, but years of low-paying contract
work and crude business development left his company in precarious
health. The breakthrough opportunity came in 1957 (after the power