Wilson Greatbatch Remembered

Wilson Greatbatch, the inventor of 1958's implantable pacemaker, died last week, October 27, at the age of 92.

The pacemaker has been recognized as one of the most important engineering achievements of the last 50 years by the National Society of Professional Engineers, and Greatbatch was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, receiving a National Medal of Technology in 1990 from then-President George H. W. Bush. Greatbatch was awarded honorary doctoral degrees from both Houghton in 1970 and SUNY Buffalo in 1984. In addition, in the winter of 2008 and 2009, Greatbatch and his late wife Eleanor received the Houghton Medal for their contributions to Houghton's science and music programs respectively.

After developing the pacemaker, Greatbatch worked tirelessly to improve its design. Bernard Piersma, an electrochemist who researched electrodes with Greatbatch for a decade, said "he had the idea that research needed to be done, and Christians needed to be doing it, so he came to Houghton College." With Greatbatch's support, Piersma was hired to teach chemistry part-time at Houghton and to research the best elements from which to make heart pacemaker electrodes so they would last longer and have fewer side effects.

Stephan Calhoun, who is since deceased, and Frederick Shannon, both chemistry professors at Houghton at the time, also contributed to the research. Shannon described Greatbatch's generosity and said "when Bernie came to do the research Greatbatch was funding, Houghton was not a wealthy school, and our chemistry equipment was fairly primitive. Greatbatch provided us with the best equipment that was available." In addition to providing Houghton with research equipment, Greatbatch's funding enabled several of Piersma's undergraduate students to collaborate in his research. According to Piersma, heart pacemaker electrodes are now made up of about 90% platinum and 10% iridium due to some of the research Greatbatch facilitated at Houghton.

"Don't let anyone tell you that good science can't be done at a small liberal arts college, because it can be, has been, and will be done here," Greatbatch said on Houghton's Math and Science Opportunities Day in March, 2001.

Greatbatch continued to perfect the design of the pacemaker by researching ways to improve the battery. The lifetime of a pacemaker was originally determined by the battery life, which was only a couple of years at that time. "It was clear that little improvement could be expected in pacemaker performance until we could find a more reliable power source," Greatbatch wrote in his memoir, The Making of the Pacemaker. With the invention of the lithium-iodine system, Greatbatch was able to design the lithium battery that is used in pacemakers today. He then founded Greatbatch Inc. to make the batteries for pacemakers. Research on the pacemaker battery was done at Houghton by chemistry professor Larry Christensen and some of his undergraduate students in the late 70s and early 80s.

Greatbatch's work was not over with the invention of the pacemaker; in fact, he held hundreds of patents. Greatbatch is described as being very humble by both Piersma and Shannon, and according to Piersma, Greatbach said that only one in 10 of his ideas actually turned into something useful. Shannon described Greatbatch as self-effacing and said that "even when he had done something he would give others credit." Ben King, Director and Associate Dean of the Greatbatch School of Music, said that "Dr. Greatbatch gave generously to Houghton on several occasions, providing significant funding for the original construction of the Paine Science Center. Other gifts, almost always very quietly made, followed over the years." One such gift was made by Eleanor Greatbatch, who loved music and oversaw the endowment of the Greatbatch School of Music graduate program and the construction of the Center for the Arts.