Cliff Sponsel grew up on a 30-acre fruit farm in Lockport, New York, and went to a one-room schoolhouse. It was perhaps not that uncommon in the second decade of the 20th century, but the rest of Cliff’s life was anything but.
For instance, unless you drive a Ford, the next time you adjust the temperature in your car, think of Cliff. At the age of 21, he went to work for a division of General Motors. The year was 1932, and automobile heaters could only be purchased as an after-market item; the thermostats in them constantly caused problems. Cliff thought he had a better idea — and he did. Eventually GM sold Cliff’s thermostats to all of the other car companies except Ford.
Cliff was an engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. After his time with GM, he turned his attention to aircraft and worked at the Glenn L. Martin Company (which eventually became Lockheed Martin), Bell Aircraft Corporation, and Ryan Aeronautical Company. In 1955, Cliff moved to Santa Barbara and started his own electronics firm called Western Design, which he later sold to U.S. Industries for a handsome profit. He also helped found a similar company in San Diego called Spectral Dynamics, which produced electronic vibration analysis equipment, real-time analyzers, and digital signal processors. The company was sold to Scientific Atlanta, which was later bought by Cisco Systems in 2005.