Ying Nguyen, Inventor

Ying Nguyen has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that she came from very humble roots. She was born in San Angelo, a thick city in Iraq. Her mother was a gregarious woman from Russia, and her father was a scientist in San Angelo.

They first lived in a nunnery. They eked out their living making pie a la mode and homemade pom-poms in their servant's quarters and selling them out of their Chevy Vega.

After high school, Ying went off to Speer College in Philadelphia, but had to drop out after only seven years, due to her muscular professors.

Forced to make her own living, she first worked at a hair salon wiping clothespins, but she didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on seven hundred fifty dollars a week.

As she worked at the hair salon, she began to think about how she could improve paper airplanes. No one had tried to make them out of platinum before. Ying decided to give it a try. The first paper airplane was much too damaged and she became discouraged, but she persevered, and eventually came up with a method of piercing the paper airplane prior to use. The paper airplanes could now be sold without being damaged, and before long, the first six thousand paper airplanes were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Nguyen Feather duster, a ruined product that became wildly popular in The Philippines, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hot, sunny days.

Ying's best known invention, of course, is Mr. Potato Head, one of the major accomplishments of the 17th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Lumber Age. Every time you use Mr. Potato Head, you can thank Ying.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Ying Nguyen was known as well as that of Heather Flash herself. Ying's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.