This sort of lore is drilled into the engineering students at LeTourneau University (my alma mater). There's an entire mini museum setup to LeTourneau's achieve

This sort of lore is drilled into the engineering students at LeTourneau University (my alma mater). There's an entire mini museum setup to LeTourneau's achievements on campus. After working there after grad school I realized much of LeTourneau's "genius" was some form of reductionism. problem: "We need a machine that can grab these logs from these trees we cut down." solution: "Why not make a gigantic claw and put it on wheels?" https://www.imcdb.org/i236846.jpg https://www.imcdb.org/i236846.jpg problem: "All these trees are in the way. We just need a way to quickly clear the area." solution: "Why not just stomp them down?" 'Stomp them down?' "Yeah" http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1964-tree-stomper-robert-g-letourneau-american/ http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1964-tree-stomper-... problem: "Ok, RG. Some trees we can't just stomp" solution: "Ok. Let's just drive over them them." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9yvNESLPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9yvNESLPo There's this saying: "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands." RG was never guilty of making anything "barely". Dude straight over over did it on a lot of projects. He took small simple machines and just scaled them tf up. He didn't do small. "You've got a big problem? You just need a bigger machine." is something that fits with what his machinery says about his design choices. He filled a niche for sure. His style and creations fit at a unique time in American history. American steel and manufacture was very much in it's heyday. He had access to all the stuff needed to execute his big ideas. His conservative religious fervor also fit the politics of the day, allowing him to link up with Billy Graham which had some factional differences of opinion from the likes of the overly conservative Bob Jones and Oral Roberts. Seeing large numbers of GIs returning from WW2 eager to work, RG put them to work building gargantuan creations. My personal, somewhat cynical take, is RG also saw that each of those veteran workers had GI Bill money sitting unused. He formed LeTourneau Technical College on the grounds of a shuttered military hospital to train employees at his factory a short walk from the campus. Being a "college" meant he could charge exactly the dollar limit amount of tuition the GI Bill afforded. Being a private college meant he could control what and how they studied. It remains a quite conservative Christian institution and students and faculty alike are reminded how it's a "ministry" until it comes time for a student who can't pay or an employee that asks for a raise. Suddenly the "ministry" facade shatters and the word "business" hops into the wording. As soon as the matter is closed, it returns to its "ministry" persona (esp when asked to do something above-and-beyond). RG is a fascinating character nevertheless. He's even listed in the Offshore Drilling Hall of Fame in Galveston (yep, it's a thing) for his work on Scorpion an offshore rig for the Zapata Oil Company, then run by a young businessman named George H. W. Bush.