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| Lonnie Johnson, Inventor |
Birth Name: Lonnie George Johnson
Nickname: "The Professor"
Born: October 6, 1949 in Mobile, Alabama
Inventor: Best known for the Super Soaker Water Gun but also invented over 80 other products such as a compressed-air-powered robot (The Linex), No-Heat Hair Rollers, a Musical Wet Diaper Detector, Energy Converter (converts Solar energy to electricity), Hair Drying Curler Clips, and Nerf Foam Dart Guns,
Home Base: Ansley Park, Atlanta, Georgia
Married: Linda Moore Johnson, 4 children
Education and Employment:
Tuskegee University - 1973 - Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering. 1975 - Masters Degree in Nuclear Engineering
United States Air Force - Engineer, Assigned to Strategic Air Command (Stealth Bomber Program).
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - 1979 - Systems Engineer for Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Cassini mission to Saturn
Chairman of the Board of The Georgia Alliance for Children
Founded Johnson Research & Development Company
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When you read about some of the inventions on this blog, you might find yourself saying "Gee, why didn't I think of that!?"
This is one of those inventions.
Given his impressive resume, the last invention that anyone would associate with Lonnie Johnson would be a water gun toy because his background yields to more heavy duty technical stuff like spaceships and military armaments.
He said he was the kind of kid who took his toys apart to see how they were made. He admits he is mechanically inclined which he says comes from helping his father repair things around the house.
One day he was playing around with rockets and made jet fuel on the kitchen stove that nearly burned down the house.
He liked to take all kinds of things apart to study them and modify them. For that reason, his friends nicknamed him "The Professor." In 1968, when he was a high school student, he won first prize for "Linex," his homemade robot that was powered by compressed air and made entirely out of junkyard scraps and spare parts.
In 1981, the idea for his Super Soaker came about by accident while he was working on an environmentally friendly heat pump that was powered by water instead of Freon. A high pressure nozzle was attached to the bathroom faucet and when he turned on the water, the water literally blasted out of the nozzle and shot across the bathroom. It was too powerful for the heat pump but it would be a novelty if it were a water gun.
He needed to finish working on the heat pump, but he put together a prototype for the water gun and gave it to his daughter to test it with her friends and they loved it. He planned to patent and market the toy to earn some money so he could finance his other projects.
In 1983, he filed for a patent and three years later in 1986 he was awarded US Patent #4591071. The blueprints simply described it as a "Squirt Gun"
But this is not just any water squirt gun. It is a "go big or go home" water cannon that he eventually named the Power Drencher Water Gun.
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| Lonnie Johnson's Super Soaker |
It took another four years of fine tuning and perfecting the water gun, and when he was ready to look into marketing, he learned that it would cost him $200,000 to get it manufactured and distributed to stores. On his military salary, it was not possible.
He set out to find a company who would manufacture and distribute it for him. He interviewed many companies and finally in 1989, he signed a contract with the Larami Corporation in Philadelphia.
Due to another water gun toy with a similar name, he changed the name of his water gun to Super Soaker. It was on store shelves by 1990, with a price of $10 to $60, depending on the size and model. It took ten years from designing it in 1981 to selling in stores in 1991.
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| Early model Super Soaker |
It was a success. In 1991 alone, his line of Super Soaker water gun toys generated over $200 million in sales.
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| A young boy with his Super Soaker |
Just because he now had lots of money coming in, Lonnie Johnson didn't retire to rest on his laurels. In 1991, he founded Johnson Research and Development Corporation to discover new products and to continue to improve and expand on the Super Soaker toys. He had many ideas he wanted to develop.
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| The Nerf Super Soaker 50 water gun |
The Nerf dart gun toy was popular at that time, and although it was a fun toy, Johnson thought he could improve on it by shooting multiple foam darts. His design became a Nerf projectile foam dart gun.
In February 1995, Hasbro bought out Larami Corporation and they continued honoring Larami's contracts. Or so Lonnie Johnson thought.
In February 2013, Johnson discovered he was being underpaid in royalties for the Super Soaker and Nerf toys, so he filed a lawsuit against Hasbro. The two went into arbitration and in November 2013, Lonnie Johnson was awarded $72.9 million in royalties from Hasbro. According to Hasbro, the Super Soaker had total sales of about $1 billion.
At last count in 2018, Lonnie Johnson holds over 130 patents. Here is a list of some of his other inventions and patents.
https://lonniejohnson.com/patents
A young boy's collection
Young Enthusiast Chris Reid' displays his Super Soaker Collection - Amazing!
Watch Lonnie Johnson tell the shorter version of his story on his YouTube video - 4 minutes in length.
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