"I thought to myself, jeez, it would be really nice to have a high power water gun. It felt really, r..." — Lonnie Johnson

Being an independent inventor is tough. You develop a product, patent it, then you're looking for someone who will see the benefit from this technology. You assume all the investment and all the risk. It can be a challenge.

I got my first patent in 1979 before I left the Air Force. I called it the Digital Distance Measuring Instrument. It used ones and zeros and dots and dashes and a magnifying lens to read binary-encoded information from a scale that was photographically reduced. It used the same kind of technology that's used in CDs and DVDs.

I think America's strength is in innovation.

In 1975, I was called to active duty in the Air Force, studying U.S. space launches that used nuclear power. I felt it was a big deal to be involved in such an important project - we were providing technical support for launch recommendations that ultimately went to the president.