Stories of Innovation

I have some great stories to tell about innovation. My narrative is about my dad. He works at Ford and has seen many innovations. He has also made some innovations (in my opinion). I’m going to tell you about some stories of innovation. Some are true, some are not. Here is one of my favorite stories to tell.

My dad was working in the shop about 10 years ago. He had noticed something off so he went to check out a car. He was working on it and then he left for lunch. He came home, let out our dog, ate lunch and went outside. One hour later he went back to the shop and started working on the suspicious car. He then went into the back because it was making noise. Then one of his worst nightmares came true! He found a skunk in the back of the car he was working on!

He needed innovation to help get the skunk out and keep working on the car. He set up a trap. He got the skunk out with some help of course. He used innovation to help get it out. “I made a hamster run out of cardboard boxes and duct tape and connected it to the underside of the car. Then I grabbed a long wire and connected it to the spark plug. I started up the engine, and it shocked the skunk. He then ran through the cardboard boxes to a box tapped at the end. We closed the box and took him outside.” (Windschitl). He said that the whole shop was scared for the rest of the day.

This next story is a great example of innovation. It uses thought process and great innovation. My dad was working on a new car that he needed to innovate. He decided to “provide better navigation in cellular dead zones” (ford.com). It was a new truck and he wanted to keep it clean, because it was new. He sat in the car and worked on it for a few days. He then made more improvements to help the owner know how to work the car. He used his knowledge he learned in workshops and in college to fix the car. The college was innovative enough to help their students. The college provides classes to help its students learn to know something just by looking at it. My dad fixed our boat from 1980 and it works fine.

The college innovates and teaches its students to learn even more about innovation. They now teach new innovation that they learned over the years. My dad goes to innovation classes to learn even more about cars and how to fix them in the most efficient way. He then teaches us about how to learn about innovation. Then we teach about things we learn in school. He then goes to work fixing cars for people who then learn about innovation themselves.

My dad has worked on so many cars, one time he got to work on a Lamborghini! He was at work and he got a car in and he was excited. He never had gotten to work on a car with so much innovation. He had to fix the engine, and one of the doors was not working. He fixed everything he needed to and got to test drive it. He was having the best time of his life using so much innovation. He got to drive it twice and he said it was awesome!

My dad does a good job at thinking outside the box and coming up with new ideas. Every day at the shop he uses innovation on trucks and other cars. He learned that over the years you become smarter, better at coming up with new ideas, and helping others.

Works cited

Ford. Ford motor company, 2023, https://www.ford.com. 8 March 2023.

Windschitl, Gary. Personal interview. 8 March 2023.