LONNIE G. JOHNSON (Born 1949) is an Inventor, Aerospace Engineer, and Entrepreneur who Invented the “Super Soaker,” in 1989, a hugely popular pump-action water toy gun that was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2015.
Johnson joined the U.S. Air Force and was assigned to the Strategic Air Command, where he helped develop the stealth bomber program. In 1979, Johnson joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working as a systems engineer for the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Cassini mission to Saturn, before returning to the Air Force in 1982.
After his military career, he became president and founder of Johnson Research and Development Co., Inc., a company that focused its efforts on developing a new generation of rechargeable batteries to provide greater energy in a smaller form. In addition to working on batteries, Johnson and his team are developing the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter (JTEC), an engine that converts heat from solar energy into electricity more effectively than current technology.
