Otis Boykin – Black History Month 2023 #BlackHistoryMonth
Otis Frank Boykin was an African American inventor and engineer. His inventions include electrical resistors used in computing, missile guidance, and pacemakers. Learn more at Sparkfun
Today we want to tell you about Otis Boykin, an engineer and inventor who holds numerous patents for electrical components, including one for the wire precision resistor!
Otis Boykin was born in Dallas, Texas in 1920 to a working class family and graduated high school in 1938 as valedictorian of his class. He then began college at Fisk University in Nashville while also working at an aerospace laboratory as a lab assistant testing automatic controls for aircraft. After graduating, Boykin moved through a few laboratory jobs working on radio and TV components. He even ran his own company with Hal Fruth, another engineer he met while working as a clerk for a manufacturing company. There, he worked on his own various inventions beginning in 1946. Boykin holds 26 patents, but the one he is best known for is the wire precision resistor.
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