Glenn Curtiss

Glenn Hammond Curtiss was an American aviation pioneer and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early as 1904, he began to manufacture engines for airships. In 1908 Curtiss joined the Aerial Experiment Association , a pioneering research group, founded by Alexander Graham Bell at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia to build flying machines.

Curtiss was born in 1878 in Hammondsport, New York to Frank Richmond Curtiss and Lua Andrews. Although his formal education extended only to Grade 8, his early interest in mechanics and inventions was evident at his first job at the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company in Rochester, New York. He invented a stencil machine adopted at the plant and later built a rudimentary camera to study photography.

Source: Wikipedia