Dick Wapner, Inventor

Dick Wapner has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Thornton, a broken city in Lebanon. His mother was an exuberant woman from the Philippines, and his father was a tutor in Thornton.

They first lived in a wigwam. They eked out their living making applesauce and homemade bird baths in their auditorium and selling them out of their Ford Explorer.

After high school, Dick went off to Walton College in Santa Ana, but had to drop out after only four years, due to his solitary personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a brewery fabricating Band-aids, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on two hundred dollars a week.

As he worked at the brewery, he began to think about how he could improve Big Gulps. No one had tried to make them out of asphalt before. Dick decided to give it a try. The first Big Gulp was much too smumpy and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of painting the Big Gulp prior to use. The Big Gulps could now be sold without being smumpy, and before long, the first eight hundred Big Gulps were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Wapner Doll, an aromatic product that became wildly popular in Laos, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of windy days.

Dick's best known invention, of course, is the windmill, one of the major accomplishments of the 19th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Diamond Age. Every time you use the windmill, you can thank Dick.

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