Jack Hope will be guest speaker June 27 at Hillsboro Library
By Carol Cartaino
courtesy of the
Highland County District Library
Can a country boy from rural Ohio succeed in the highly competitive and sophisticated world of engine design and engineering? Come to the library on Wednesday, June 27 at 7 p.m. and find out.
Local resident Jack Hope will offer some intriguing insights from his new book, "High Hopes: The Adventures of an Engineer."
All of the motors we depend on — from the cars and trucks that take us everywhere, to the planes that hold us up tens of thousands of feet above the ground — don’t just spring into existence by themselves.
Someone, somewhere, has to design them. Jack will take us behind the scenes of the little-known process of creating and perfecting such things, through all of the imagination and excitement, invention and reinvention, frustration, setback, and victory.
Jack will explain how he started making paper airplanes when he wasn’t milking the cows or bringing in firewood. He will share a glimpses of a rural world now lost to many Americans, and of the odd jobs that taught him important lessons about life and business, and served him well later
in the larger world of national and international business.
Jack started his professional life at the giant GE, where he spent many stimulating years, as well as at North American Aviation and Cummins Engine Company. He worked his way through a wide variety of challenging assignments, including the creation of a nuclear-powered aircraft, the
quest for an American SST, and management of an international co-venture with the French that resulted in the most successful commercial aircraft engine in history.
Jack will also share the surprising and eye-opening story of his efforts in historical preservation and restoration in Southern Ohio — an account with many lessons for idealists.
Mr. Hope makes his home in Southern Ohio, where his ancestors were among the earliest settlers when the pioneers moved west in the early 19th century.
(Copies of Jack's book are on sale for $25 each at The Highland County Press.)