‘One shot’ gadgets
move from garage
to sprawling success
II ^ , Ml
Bob Allington began his small
business by cranking out “one
shot” inventions from his par
ents’ garage. Today, 32 years
later, he’s at the helm of a sprawl
ing $30 million corporation with
more than 400 employees.
Why then does the founder
and president of Isco Inc. of
Lincoln have an ID that reads:
“Bob Allington, #2.” instead of
#1?
Allington explained that when
the company decided to use
✓ employee numbers in 1966.
there weren’t any personnel
records, and he and his part
ners could not remember who
had been working for the com
pany the longest.
“I knew that I was second . .
. because while I was still a
graduate student, my partner
hired a tool maker full time —
so he would’ve been No. 1.
“And my brother, not want
ing to overlook a big chance,
said it should be alphabetically;
his name is John and my name
is Robert — so he’s No. 1. I
decided, what the hell, either
way I’m No. 2," Allington said.
s. the 55-year-old Lincoln na
\tive. who has placed about 45
U.S. and about 90 international
patents, said his father's “gadge
tarian background" and encour
agement accented his own crea
tivity when he was young.
“He’d give me advice on hints
on how to build things and how
to build things better. He liked
to work in a workshop, so we
had a basement full of small
power tools.
“It was a mixture of facilities
he provided, plus inspiration,"
he said.
Allington said the suppor
tive environment his father
created during his grade school
years extended into his study
at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln and became even more
important after he was stricken
with polio.
Allington said he was work
ing in Boston in the summer of
1955 when he experienced
backaches and was hospital
ized within three days.
As he was lying on t he hospi
tal bed. he said, he told himself
that his case of polio “wasn't
11/ —
going to be serious.” Although
trie disease didn’t consume him,
he now uses a wheelchair and
has limited motion in his arms.
Yet AlHngton managed to keep
building Isco during his hospi
talization in Boston via tele
phone calls to his partner in
Lincoln. After returning to
Nebraska, he said, he needed to
prove he could work so society
wouldn’t shut him out.
“Bear in mind. 1960 was
before accessibility to places for
handicapped people, before
there were equal opportunity
rights laws, before the move
ment for mainstreaming people
in society — they’d Just put
them away and store them.
“I didn’t want to live like that."
From its tenuous beginnings
over the phone. Allington’s
garage-founded business has
grown into a vertically integrated
corporation.
Isco manufactures and mar
kets worldwide a host of instru
ments for chemical, biochemi
cal and medical research, as
well as water sampling equip
menl lor monitoring compliance
with pollution regulations.
In the infancy of his busi
ness. Allington said, the UNL
College of Agriculture was his
start-up customer.
He repaired equipment and
made unique “one-shot." not
mass-produced, products for
faculty members in exchange
for their expertise in helping
him solve problems.
The most bizarre of these
inventions, he said, came in
1964 when he built an indoor
model to simulate spray and
flame treatment of weeds.
“Somebody came in two years
ago looking for a replacement
part; he asked if we still had the
drawings for it. I thought that
was the funniest thing I heard."
Allington said.
It was about that time when
his partner. Jacob Schafer,
unexpectedly left Isco to start
his own machine shop. Alling
ton said. Because Schafer
wanted 50 percent of Isco. which
had no liquid assets. Allington
said he was forced to turn to
friends and relatives who pur
chased company stocks and
loaned him money to cover the
severance.
“Today they’re millionaires,”
he said of those who paid
$30,000 for 3 percent of Isco.
Allington credits the rapid
growth of his company to three
patents he recorded to improve
an analytical separation instru
ment, a device that would meas
ure characteristics of chemi
cals being separated from a
solution.
He said he got his first idea
for improving the instrument
when a chemist who wanted to
upgrade the device’s capabili
ties approached Allington to
discuss how to overcome a tech
nical problem.
“Minutes is maybe how long
it took: I had it figured out be
fore I got done talking to him,”
Allington said.
Because Isco had a patent
lock on the device. Allington
said, tlie company had “a tre
mendous advantage" over
competitors. The instrument
was In sufficient demand to
expand production.
Allington said he first became
interested in analytical separa
tion instruments when, in 1960,
he saw that the biological sci
ence instrument market wasn’t
being served well by the manu
facturers of the time.
“Everything was in such a
primitive state that I could make
a lot of dumb mistakes and still
survive. It was like riding along
on a wave rather than having to
use a lot of power to get there
myself."
Similarly, in the late ’60s,
Isco opened an environmental
division because Allington per
ceived a swing in public opin
ion for greater environmental
protection.
“There was a great deal of
talk about the environment, but
nobody was willing to do any
thing about it.” he said.
While en route to a meeting
in Cleveland. Allington said, he
saw smoke rising from the
Cuyahoga River. When he asked
the taxi driver what was hap
pening, he said, the driver re
plied. “Well, the river is on fire."
“I asked him If I heard that
right. He was a little annoyed
J9\\ \ \ \ m
and said, That river always yk
catches on fire during the w
summer.’ [t
“I thought, *We’ve got to be of
reaching a breaking point. Now jjr
is the time to start thinking f
about water pollution.’" '
Coincidentally. Isco already
had the necessary equipment
to begin production ol a water
sampler, Alllngton said. But
government rollbacks, a result
of the Vietnam war. had cut
U.S. Department of Agriculture j
funds, which would have fi- /
nanced the purchase of the./
environmental simulator Isco'
was building to meet the de- /
mands of agronomy research-/!
ers. \
So. instead of idling produc
tion lines. Isco began produc-/
ing water sampling collected
within a couple months, be
said.
This unique flexibility and
feel for the marketplace earned
Alllngton. in addition to many
other awards, a presidential
certificate for excellence in
export goods which hangs in
the lobby of Isco’s main office V
building. Ml1
Today, the instrument divi
sion. at 4700 Superior St., and
the environmental division, at v
531 Westgate Blvd., have rep
resentatives in more than 30 ^
countries and sales of $12.5 N
million and $18.5 million re
spectively. he said.
Allington said his career has
not only been a wonderful ex
perience, but also serves as a
role model for other handicapped
people who come into contact
with him.
Describing how polio changed
his life. Allington quoted Samuel
Johnson, who said, “Depend
upon it. sir. when a man knows
he is to be hanged in a fort
night, it concentrates his mind
wonderfully.”
“The concentration Johnson
was talking about wasn’t about
brooding about being hung; he
was talking about trying to fig
ure a way to get out of it,” he
said.
— James P. Webb
Staff Reporter
Column separates
the sample, which
migrates at different
rates through the
co,umn packing. Im- 1
H NM|j|| provements here
allow for faster se pa
ll 8§ K rations.
wmmm
Analytical separation instrument
Sample of components A
and B are injected into
the column.
l-t -:-:-——:-—
Detector radiates ultraviolet light through the separated
sample. The amount of absorbance is measured on the
running graph, appearing as peaks. This is used to help
j identify the components of the sample. More sensitive detec
tors allow for the slopes of the graph to be measured as well
as the height of the peak. This improvement gives more
accurate and more readible running graphs.
_
Brian Stwllho/Daily Mabraakan
Phdto by Kiley Timperley
