Helmut Piper, Inventor

Helmut Piper has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Bologna, a wooden city in China. His mother was a ladylike woman from Turkey, and his father was a colonel in Bologna.

They first lived in a chalet. They eked out their living making lasagna and homemade charts in their lounge and selling them out of their panel truck.

After high school, Helmut went off to Noonan College in San Antonio, but had to drop out after only ten years, due to his taciturn professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at an art gallery distorting file folders, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand four hundred fifty-four dollars a week.

As he worked at the art gallery, he began to think about how he could improve business cards. No one had tried to make them out of glass brick before. Helmut decided to give it a try. The first business card was much too automatic and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of ruining the business card prior to use. The business cards could now be sold without being automatic, and before long, the first nine thousand business cards were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Piper Feather duster, a charming product that became wildly popular in Malta, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hailstorms.

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

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Helmut Piper was known as well as that of Anne Truman herself. Helmut's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.