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Oct. 24, 2003 – In the end, it was much ado about something, and author Steve Kemper held a front-row seat for all but the last act. “Code Name Ginger: The Story behind Segway and Dean Kamen’s Quest to Invent a New World” is a modern drama with a Shakespearean hero in the visionary inventor whose character flaws undermine his ultimate goal to — yes — change the world.
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But the book is also a thriller in the guise of a business book. It begins near the end, with Kemper explaining that he never intended to become part of the story when in 1999 Kamen invited him to chronicle the development of a new transportation device nicknamed “Ginger.” Kemper became Kamen’s shadow.
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Kamen banished Kemper in early 2001 when a book proposal was leaked to the press. The absurd speculation that followed catapulted Kamen into the public arena, including prime-time TV.
The exiled Kemper witnessed the unveiling of Kamen’s “human transporter” on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in late 2001, but his absence from the final throes of the Ginger project mattered little. He already had enough material to weave the cast of characters involved in the creation and funding of Ginger with the incredibly difficult process of making what appeared to many, including TV co-host Diane Sawyer, to be a scooter.
“She (Sawyer) couldn’t see the 90 percent of Ginger’s story hidden below the surface,” Kemper writes — innards like MEMS sensors for stabilizing the machine, “and didn’t know about the intense, ragged process that had moved this invention from idea to marketplace.”
Kamen remains center stage in the story, and appropriately so. His engineering genius, tenacity and the wealth he amassed as the inventor of the stair-stepping iBOT Mobility System wheelchairs and other medical devices kept the program alive. His charisma and sales-manship inspired prominent business leaders like Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Steve Jobs as well as his talented staff of engineers — the unsung heroes whose dedication really makes Ginger hum, Kemper emphasizes.
It’s clear Kemper believes Kamen wants to change the world with technology and technologists. Ginger will supplant the automobile in congested cities and developing nations, reducing energy consumption and pollution. The nonprofit FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science), a Kamen creation to get kids involved in science and engineering, will build a generation of gadget-loving guys and gals.
Kamen has his share of eccentricities and faults. His wardrobe: all denim all the time; his New Hampshire home: a palace where he rarely eats a meal; his management style: last-minute disruptions that his staff calls “being Deaned”; and his duplicity and betrayals: conniving suppliers and backers, and letting co-workers take the fall for his mistakes.
And the biggest one: His inability to let go. “But Dean himself is one of Ginger’s potential booby traps,” Kemper writes. “He doesn’t know how to run a large product-development and manufacturing company, yet is reluctant to give power to anyone else.”
There is more to the book than Kamen’s feats and foibles. Kemper put in lots of hang time with the engineers and managers who shepherded a sometimes-capricious Ginger down the path of commercialization. Through them, he shows how apparent simplicity is the result of imagination, ingenuity and hard work.
Kemper also adeptly portrays the arduous task of turning a dream into a company with products. The Segway Human Transporter may look like a scooter with a Porsche price tag (a new one costs $4,950 on Amazon) but after reading “Code Name Ginger” you’ll see its many layers of complexity.
There’s little doubt that Ginger is something of a technological wonder. Whether Kamen is right in his prognostications that it — and he — will change the world is fodder for Part II.