Doing More with Much Less: A Legacy of Innovation

The world lost a legendary innovator last month when Dr. Paul MacCready passed away at the tender ago of 81.

Born in 1925, Paul MacCready founded AeroVironment in 1971 and this month celebrated the 30th anniversary of the record-setting flight of the Gossamer Condor, which made the world’s first sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human on August 23, 1977.

Nicknamed the “father of human-powered flight,” Dr. MacCready was named Engineer of the Century by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and one of the 100 greatest minds of the 20th century by Time Magazine. In recent talks and presentations around the world he would typically leave his audiences with the following thought, reflecting his focus on the changing relationship between humans, nature and technology:

“Over billions of years, on a unique sphere, chance has painted a thin covering of life -- complex, improbable, wonderful and fragile. Suddenly we humans (a recently arrived species no longer subject to the checks and balances inherent in nature), have grown in population, technology, and intelligence to a position of terrible power: we now wield the paintbrush.”