Catching up with David Gerber

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Speaking with David Gerber, the son of noted inventor and PCB industry innovator Joseph Gerber, about his new book, The Inventor’s Dilemma: The Remarkable Life of H. Joseph Gerber (Yale University Press, October 2015) was one of the highlights of my career.

From the time I started in this industry 43 years ago, I have heard about the Gerbers, or more accurately back then, Gerber tapes, and never thinking much about it. I knew from the beginning they had something to do with consolidating and carrying the data needed to build a printed circuit board, but that was about it. I never gave a thought to where the term “Gerber” came from.

Then a few years ago, out of nowhere, I got a call from David Gerber asking if I had ever heard of his dad. David told me about his book project and asked if I would give him names of people he could talk to about the PCB industry, especially those from back in the day. I did the best I could to accommodate him, asking that he let me know when the book was done so I could read it, speak to him, and write a review.

Then, a few weeks ago I heard from David. The book is done and it’s a winner. I read it during the holiday break and enjoyed every page. I was hooked from the very beginning when young Heinz Joseph Gerber escapes from Austria with his mother, Bertha, to find a new life in New York, through his college years and his first invention (an idea that came from his elastic pajama waistband), and all the way to his friendship with Honest Abe Kopplemann, a wealthy businessman who saw the talent and ambition in this genius from just about the first time he met him.

The book meanders through the founding of his company, Gerber Scientific, to the inventions he designed to help industries like the PCB industry, and finally to his triumphant acceptance of The National Medal of Technology in 1995. All told, H. Joseph Gerber’s was a life lived in full, well worth writing and reading about.

David Gerber has done us a great service by sharing vivid insights into a man who did indeed put his own “dent in the universe.” Here is my interview with David Gerber.

Dan Beaulieu: David, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I have to tell you that after reading this book and learning more about your family, it is an honor to be talking to you.

David Gerber: It is my pleasure, Dan. I am grateful for this opportunity to talk with you and to connect with so many people in the electronics industry. In writing The Inventor’s Dilemma, my role was to describe my father’s amazing life, and through that story, examine forces that shaped the rise and fall of American manufacturing in the second half of the 20^th century. I hope that I have done justice to this story.

Beaulieu: In the book, you describe being in your dad’s office for the first time after his death, and finding the original elastic pajama waistband that started it all. About that day, you say in the book, “And in those workrooms I knew the employees would return the next morning, stand by those machines and inspect the overnight results with the fascination of discovery: These men and women would kneel down and look up from beneath the machines and debate and investigate the possibilities inherent in the creative process as my father had. It was at that moment that I determined to write this book.”  That was in 1998. Can you tell me more me about that journey, and that story, starting with what it felt like to be in your dad’s office that day?

Gerber: I was working for Gerber Scientific at the time, and this was the first time I had entered my father’s private office since his death. The company had grown to become a global supplier of computer automation systems for the electronics, automotive, apparel, sign, furniture, printing, eyeglasses, and other industries. But the office remained small, and was filled with furniture from the company’s early days. In the corner was a green metal file cabinet. The bottom drawer had a small toolbox with newspaper clippings, old patents, and a small segment of cloth with elastic.

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