People
Check Out ‘The Mobile Phone Challenge’ At Healthy Hearing
Dr. Paul Dybala, who runs two excellent web sites for hard-of-hearing consumers and hearing health professionals — Healthy Hearing and Audiology Online — asked me to contribute an article to Healthy Hearing on my experiences shopping for mobile phones that would work with my powerful hearing aids. It was a fun exercise and has driven a lot of traffic to Hearing Mojo. It’s entitled ‘The Mobile Phone Challenge.’ Check it out!
Likable “Incredible Hulk” Lou Ferrigno Is A Real-Life Inspiration For Hard-Of-Hearing People
Healthy Hearing has just posted a good interview with hard-of-hearing actor and bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. Ferrigno first came to fame in Pumping Iron, the 1970s-era documentary on professional bodybuilders, which today is remembered mainly as the vehicle that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger on his long march to Terminator-hood in Hollywood and then to the Governor’s mansion in California. He is better remembered now for his role in The Incredible Hulk 1980s TV series. Less well known but perhaps more important in the long run is that Ferrigno has been hard of hearing since infections stole most of his hearing when he was a small child and is now using his celebrity as an inspiring example for people who have to overcome all kinds of challenges.
In Pumping Iron I always found Feriggno as intriguing as Arnold because he was an equally talented but less flamboyant athlete on his way to a second Mr. Universe title at the time. The George Butler documentary turned Schwarzenegger into a caricature of a relentless self-promoter who brilliantly parlayed his modern-day Horatio Alger story into movie stardom and an even more improbable political career as the “Governator.” It’s ironic, then, that the real human being in “Pumping Iron,” regular-guy Lou Ferrigno, achieved his initial popular fame playing a caricture: the comic-book action hero Hulk. The spectacular image of the diminutive Bill Bixby’s shirt ripping as he morphs into the giant, 6′ 5″, 285-pound green Lou Ferrigno as the righteous Hulk bounding off to wreak mayhem on whatever miscreant crosses their path remains seared in the memories of millions of 1980s televison viewers.
Ferrigno’s disability didn’t stop him and in fact spurred him on to achieve his goals, first in bodybuilding and then in an acting career spanning film, television and the live stage. He is also a motivational speaker who provides an articulate and refreshingly humble example for people looking for inspiration in dealing with their own challenges. “If you try to hide your hearing loss you are actually going to do more harm to yourself,” Ferrigno says in the interview. “It is better to come out in the open and be honest about it, especially with yourself.” And even though he’s nearly a foot taller than I am and several times wider, Ferrigno still puts his hearing aids on one at a time: just like me, he’s constantly trying out better solutions, including new super-powerful Starkey DaVinci PxP behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids (I just got the most powerful BTE’s sold by Widex), and he’s enjoying the new Starkey ELI (Ear-Level Instrument) wireless Bluetooth attachment that enables him to pipe his cellphone conversations directly into his hearing aid. He’s come a long way from his childhood, when his parents only had enough money to give him one hearing aid. He never let his hearing loss get in the way of his goals, and after he became a star he never forgot where he comes from. Which is all pretty incredible in its own right.
In Memoriam: Jack Kilby Made Today’s Hearing Aids Possible
It’s a little-known fact that Jack Kilby, the inventor of the microchip, was also a hearing-aid pioneer. The Texas Instruments engineer and Nobel Prize winner’s death yesterday at the age of 81 has spurred a slew of stories about the invention of the integrated circuit and the dawn of the computer age. But Kilby’s first job out of college in the 1950s was with the Centralab Division of Globe-Union Corporation in Wisconsin, where as a young engineer interested in “miniaturization,” he helped develop what the Smithsonian Institution calls one of “the first consumer products of the electronic age — the transistor-based hearing aid.” Later, he won fame and fortune with his work on the first electronic calculators, on the first thermal printers, and then for his breakthrough proving it was possible to integrate a large number of transistors on a single piece of silicon to create the first semiconductor chips. Kilby shared the honor of “father of the chip” with Robert Noyce of Intel Corporation, who most likely would have shared the Nobel Prize with Kilby had he lived long enough. After they developed the first memory chips, Intel and Texas Instruments raced to develop and commercialize the first microprocessors. Intel took the lead in microprocessors powering personal computers, while TI took the lead in developing the digital signal processors (DSPs) used in many communications devices, including today’s digital hearing aids. So in addition to his early work miniaturizing the amplifiers used in the first generation of analog electronic hearing aids, it’s fair to say Jack Kilby also helped make possible today’s amazing digital hearing aids. May he rest in peace.
William Austin, Hearing-Aid Promoter Extraordinaire
The only thing William Austin seems to work at harder than promoting himself is promoting the benefits of hearing aids. But in fact, the two go hand in hand. Over the past 40 years, the founder of Starkey Laboratories, one of the world’s seven dominant hearing aid manufacturers, has waged what at times has seemed a one-man war against the stigma of wearing hearing aids. From fitting U.S. presidents with aids (Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton) to starting a foundation that raises more than $1 million a year and has donated more than 120,000 hearing aids to people in need around the world, the name William Austin has become synonymous with hearing health. This month Vanity Fair magazine put him in its Hall of Fame. And today the Starkey Hearing Foundation issued a news release entitled “Legendary Audiologist William Austin Restores Hearing to 113-Year-Old Woman.”
A publicity stunt from the P.T. Barnum of the hearing aid industry? Perhaps. But it couldn’t be for a better cause. For more information on the Starkey Hearing Foundation, including information on how to contribute, go to http://www.sotheworldmayhear.org.
Here’s the text of the release:
MINNEAPOLIS, April 25 /PRNewswire/ — It was today announced that 113-year-old Rebecca Lanier, who had been deaf for over a decade, has regained her hearing after being fitted with high-tech hearing aids at Starkey Laboratories. After adjustments, the procedure today has been deemed a complete success by a team of audiologists.
Hearing pioneer William Austin, head of Starkey, had heard of Lanier’s amazing life and knew he had to do something. “You’re so isolated if you can’t hear, you’re disconnected from the world,” says Austin. “I was delighted to see the smile on her face when she heard the world again.”
Lanier, whose nickname of “Queen Rebecca” befits her status as America’s oldest woman, replied “Yeah! I like that!” when she heard her first words. By the end of her visit to Starkey, Lanier was joking with photographers, saying, “You better get those pictures right … ”
Austin had Lanier flown from her Cleveland home to Starkey headquarters in Minneapolis and personally supervised several tests to ensure the success of the procedure. After a few hours, the custom-made hearing aids were ready.
At the same session, Austin helped a young lady at the opposite side of the spectrum — six-year-old Biverly (correct spelling) Huff from the Philippines. Both Rebecca and little Biverly, with a 107 year age difference, walked out of Starkey with the same wonderful gift — the ability to hear clearly. Biverly, who was almost totally deaf, will be able to hear friends and family for the very first time.
These fittings are all in a day’s work for William Austin, whose Starkey Hearing Foundation, since 2000, has donated more than 120,000 hearing aids to people who cannot afford them. This week Austin is making a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico, where he will fit 760 impoverished children with hearing devices.
Austin is hardly a stranger to fitting noteworthy people with hearing aids. He has personally fit four US presidents with hearing aids (including the late Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr.), and other world leaders. Austin has also provided hearing assistance to renowned people including Steve Martin, Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, Walter Cronkite and Billy Graham, among many others. He can be contacted via www.sotheworldmayhear.org or by writing to the Starkey Foundation, 6700 Washington Ave. S., Eden Prairie, MN 55344-3405.
