Biography
Howard Simpson was born on 7 May 1892 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the son of John Robert Bruce Simpson, a carriage maker who was a superintendent for the Fisher Body Company. The Simpsons moved to Detroit in 1902. Simpson graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1910 and entered an apprenticeship program at Cadillac Motor Company. He attended the University of Michigan, graduating in 1917 with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.
Simpson volunteered for military service during World War I, but was rejected owing to poor eyesight. He served as a civilian employee in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, inspecting aircraft engines. After the war he went to work for the Henry Ford & Son Tractor Plant in Dearborn, Michigan, as a draftsman.
Simpson married Gertrude Haeger in 1918; they had two children, Bruce (b. 1921) and Charlotte (b. 1924).
In 1921 Henry Ford & Son was acquired by the Ford Motor Company. Simpson became a design engineer at Ford, working primarily on tractor designs and planetary gearsets. He often worked directly with Henry Ford himself.
Simpson left Ford in 1938. In 1948 he was diagnosed with cancer. Told he had less than six months to live, he moved to the American southwest (California and then Arizona). He spent much of his time drawing every arrangement he could conceive for planetary gearsets, filing patents on each. He was granted 23 patents in this field during his lifetime.
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