I was browsing the news recently when an article about Dean Kamen jumped out at me. You might know him as the founder of FIRST, president of DEKA Research & Development, inventor of the Segway® PT , holder of numerous patents, or one of the keynote speakers at the 2008 FABTECH® Intl. & AWS Welding Show. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is aimed at getting young people interested in acquiring 21st-century skills and knowledge; DEKA is a research and design firm that employs more than 200 engineers in various disciplines; and the inventions and patents are proof that he's the real McCoy. With a resume like that, you might think he's trying to save manufacturing singlehandedly. He seems to specialize in motion. In addition to the Segway personal transporter, he has developed an all-terrain wheelchair, continues work on an advanced prosthetic arm, and uses FIRST to promote the development of robots through FIRST Robotics Competitions. His latest invention is much more modest. It concerns plain old water.
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The R&D tax credit. Although it"s just a six-syllable phrase, it might strike more fear in the hearts of fabricators than any other phrase, including the shipment is late or the customer is demanding a refund. Heck, it"s probably worse than hearing a spouse say, My mother is coming to visit.

Research and development sounds like the domain of people with Ph.D.s, wearing white lab coats, developing new pharmaceuticals, or toiling away in clean rooms, working up fancy new computer chips. And then we have tax credit. You can"t get around the image that conjures up: the inescapable maze formally known as the U.S. tax code, written by Congress, deployed by the Internal Revenue Service, and reinforced by the long arm of the law if you don"t comply.

But it"s really not that bad.
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