Our Way 1
PIERRE AND MARIE CURIE In a time when female scie
ntists were scarce, female Nobel Prize winners were even rarer. Nevertheless, Marie Curie won the prestigious prize not only once, but twice. Drawn together by their interest in science, the Curies became both partners in love and scientific collaborators. Together, they first discovered polonium and then radium. The Curies, together with Henri Becquerel, were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903. Marie Curie was then awarded the Nobel Prize again in 1911, this time in chemistry. THE BROTHERS MCDONALD AND RAY KROC The McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, were operating a very unusual restaurant in San Bernardino, California. They had no waiting staff. Instead, clients ordered and waited at the front counter, and the food was then delivered there as well. The hamburgers they served were pre-cooked, kept warm and put together in an assembly line. They had purchased no less than eight milkshake machines from salesman Ray Kroc, who was so impressed he persuaded the brothers to let him open the first franchised McDonald’s in 1955. The rest is fast food history. PLAYTEX AND NASA In many ways, Playtex was a trailblazing company. Not only were they the first to advertise undergarments on national television, but their industrial division made the suit Neil Armstrong wore when stepping out of Apollo 11 and onto the moon. Playtex, best known for making underwear and baby products, had only six weeks to come up with their prototype and win the NASA contract. The final suit that Armstrong wore was hand-tailored, an example of cutting-edge technology meeting traditional craftsmanship. OUR WAY PARTNERSHIPS 27 SILVER AND FRY (3M) Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, failed miserably when trying to invent a super strong glue – his concoction was sticky, but the adhesion wasn’t any good. This was in 1968, and the glue was shelved for a couple of years until a colleague of Spencer’s named Arthur Fry suffered a minor annoyance. His bookmarks kept falling out of his hymn book during choir. Wouldn´t it be great if there was a glue strong enough to hold the bookmarks in place without damaging the pages of the book? Thus, Post-it Notes were born!