Edward Roderick Davies

Edward Roderick Davies was a self-made industrialist. Life and career: Davies was born on June 2, 1915 in Caerau, Bridgend, Wales, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, into a Welsh coal mining family. In 1929 he immigrated to the United States with his father David Davies who had black lung disease and had been injured in a mining accident. David worked at a Ford plant and paid for his wife, Annie Davies, and son, Edward, to come thereafter. In 1938, Edward graduated from General Motors Institute of Technology in 1938 with a degree in engineering and, after serving a stint in the U.S. Naval Engineering corps, in 1946 he co-founded a maker of heavy equipment for marine use, Jered Industries. Some sources have suggested that Jered helped to engineer the landing craft used for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, though this is unlikely as Jered was not founded until well after D-Day. Davies—who had also worked with the NASA's Gemini space program and served as the mayor of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan—was the father of Ann Romney. He died on September 8, 1992. Jered: Jered was sold to the British engineering firm Vickers in 1980, at Davies' retirement. (The division became an independent entity again in 1997 and was acquired in 2005 by PaR Systems.) Religious views: Davies rejected religion and was an avowed atheist. He was known to call organized religion "hogwash" and "drudgery". Patents: Davies' U.S. patents include: - an automated window washing for high-rises - yacht fin stabilizers - a high performance golf cart - a scuba spear gun - a lawn sprinkler