Noel Wapner, Inventor

Noel Wapner has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Fresno, an overgrown city in Indonesia. His mother was a serious woman from Bulgaria, and his father was a radio announcer in Fresno.

They first lived in a castle. They eked out their living making crab rangoon and homemade computers in their doghouse and selling them out of their Ford Bronco.

After high school, Noel went off to Burtle College in Tampa, but had to drop out after only one year, due to his silly professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a clothing store squashing comic books, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand nine hundred seventy-two dollars a week.

As he worked at the clothing store, he began to think about how he could improve fish bowls. No one had tried to make them out of silk before. Noel decided to give it a try. The first fish bowl was much too thick and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of preparing the fish bowl prior to use. The fish bowls could now be sold without being thick, and before long, the first three thousand fish bowls were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Wapner Clam, a papery product that became wildly popular in Vietnam, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of driving rainstorms.

Noel's best known invention, of course, is the military tank, one of the major accomplishments of the 20th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Reed Age. Every time you use the military tank, you can thank Noel.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Noel Wapner was known as well as that of Kathryn Barber herself. Noel's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.