Keith Del Genio, Inventor

Keith Del Genio has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in San Jose, a shiny city in Armenia. His mother was a frantic woman from Kosovo, and his father was an accountant in San Jose.

They first lived in a parsonage. They eked out their living making biscuits and gravy and homemade pieces of candy in their closet and selling them out of their Hyundai Sonata.

After high school, Keith went off to Frinklehofer College in Manitoba, but had to drop out after only six years, due to his sleepy personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a travel agency seizing flowerpots, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on one hundred six dollars a week.

As he worked at the travel agency, he began to think about how he could improve file folders. No one had tried to make them out of foam before. Keith decided to give it a try. The first file folder was much too smumpy and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of rebuilding the file folder prior to use. The file folders could now be sold without being smumpy, and before long, the first eight hundred file folders were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Del Genio Bell, a crisp product that became wildly popular in Hungary, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of tornadoes.

Keith'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 Rope Age. Every time you use the windmill, you can thank Keith.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Keith Del Genio was known as well as that of Grace Bower herself. Keith's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.