“Two people in my life affected me the most,” Johnson said. “My dad and Charles Kettering.”
Born in Chillicothe, Ohio in 1934, Johnson moved to the Dayton area after his father, Wilbur Kenneth Johnson, got a job here. He graduated from Xenia High School in 1951.
“My dad’s nickname was “Wilbur ‘Radio’ Johnson,’” the younger Johnson said. “He was good with radios and anything electrical and he only had an 8th-grade education.”
The elder Johnson got a job at Wright Patterson Air Force Base as an electrician when his son was 9 years old. Initially he commuted back and forth from Chillicothe to Dayton and only came home on the weekends. Eventually the elder Johnson moved his family to Xenia because he had a first cousin living there.
“After the war, my dad left Wright Patt and started his own business — Johnson Electric, Plumbing and Heating,” Johnson said.
But when he started thinking more about his life and future, Johnson said he always knew he’d go to college. He said he feels fortunate to have had several teachers that influenced him in this direction, and he had a natural affinity for science.
“It’s interesting because you would think my father would have pushed for me to go into the business, but I remember it never came up,” Johnson said. “I worked with him constantly growing up though.”
Johnson attended Central State University, graduating with a degree in chemistry in 1956. The first job for which he applied was in the engineering department at the Charles F. Kettering Research Laboratories.
“It was the best thing to ever happen to me,” Johnson said. “If I wasn’t an engineer before, I became one there.”
Johnson worked for Kettering from 1957–1963 as a senior research associate. He was especially intrigued about two of Kettering’s main interests — photosynthesis, renewable energy sources and magnetism.
“Kettering did all of these things because he wanted to know why things happened the way they did,” Johnson said. “He also started the Kettering Foundation in 1927 with his own money.”
Kettering died in November of 1958 and Johnson said it was never the same for him after that. Though he had interesting work at Kettering Research Labs that paid him well, he missed the new and interesting projects Kettering often started.
Johnson eventually took a job at Aerojet-General Corporation through WPAFB. He said they had a new lab doing a lot of the same things Kettering did. He retired completely in 2001, having had a long and interesting career with several companies.
But like most people, he didn’t think much about what his retirement years would bring.
“When I lived in Yellow Springs, I always had volunteering in mind,” Johnson said. “But while I was working, I didn’t really have much time to do it.”
Shortly after he officially retired, Johnson spotted an article about Five Rivers Metroparks putting together a Dayton invention tour. This seemed right up his alley.
“I did this tour for about 10 years,” Johnson said. “Mostly I took school kids around Dayton and talked about all the inventions.”
Over the years, Johnson has also given tours of Woodland Cemetery, Dayton History’s Carillon Park and volunteered for the City of Dayton Landmark Committee. All of this led to his desire to work to highlight the historical significance of Dayton neighborhoods and the people who have lived there over the years.
Today, Johnson is 90 years “young” and said instead of looking for ways to slow down, he instead plans to keep going. He gives talks to groups at the recreated Deeds Barn at Carillon Park every Tuesday morning and has created YouTube videos of his presentations. He is also a cancer survivor, after overcoming throat cancer that was diagnosed in 2005.
“I have a lifelong goal of establishing a C.F. Kettering Magnetics Museum in Dayton,” Johnson said. “This will be to help commemorate and preserve Kettering’s contributions.”
Johnson also discovered the original windmill he worked on with Kettering as part of his renewable energy research. Today he is working on restoring what is left of the windmill and hoping to get it back to operational status. He and his wife Teresa were very active in rescuing and fostering greyhound dogs over the years.
“The most positive thing for me is to be able to say I’m 90 and I’m still doing things I love to do,” Johnson said. “My life has been good.”
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