Sturman Industries

“Eddie’s parents called him Oded, a Biblical name that means to sustain or lift up. It means to make people feel good, to encourage people. “I think it’s amazing how names influence personality,” said Carol Sturman, Eddie’s wife and business partner. Eddie Sturman doesn’t believe in Murphy’s Law. “If anything can go right it will, and at the best possible moment,” Sturman says of his philosophy of life.

His optimism has produced Sturman Industries, a radically different engineering research, development and manufacturing company located on 600 acres of forest and meadow in Woodland Park. The 75-person company develops controls that allow mechanical systems to be smaller, faster, more efficient and environmentally friendly. Its main product is a digital valve and system control technology that increases the efficiency of engines.

The company’s headquarters is a 60,000-square-foot structure of wood, glass and stone that looks more like a Shangri-La than a business. Visitors cross a covered wooden bridge to enter the lobby with stone fireplace and leather couches. Employees tread on Oriental rugs and wood floors. Picture windows offer views of Pikes Peak.

Almost no one, including Sturman has a title. There is no formal hierarchy of vice presidents, general managers or directors. Employees are given latitude to set their own schedules, and everyone is encouraged to take risks. Ideas are more valuable to Sturman, who invented valves used in the Apollo space programme, the first safety bumper, a new refrigeration method and a wireless irrigation system, and unraveled the secrets of magnetism.

Eddie Sturman invented the foundation of Sturman’s digital valve technology for the Apollo Space Programme. By replacing valves that used constant energy to hold them open, with efficient digital, electronically controlled valves, energy use in the system was reduced by only being needed to open or close the valves.

Industry Firsts

Besides working with the space programme, Eddie saw the performance benefits possible to help meet industry needs and increasing environmental demands. He invented the first safety bumper, a new refrigeration cycle, wireless irrigation systems and worked on many other improvements using his practical and enabling space technology and designs. – Possible applications are many

Realising the need for better products to help protect the environment and save natural resources, Carol & Eddie in 1989, formed Sturman Industries. With the new company and growing team bringing advancements to commercial and industrial applications, Eddie focused on affordable and practical product innovation while Carol began to market Sturman Technology to the world.

“I would venture to say that Eddie is one of the most important scientists alive in the world today.” — Marc Holtzman, former Colorado Secretary of Technology (Beebe, Paul “Profile: Eddie Sturman” The Colorado Spings Gazette, May 23, 2005

Developing Technologies

Sturman Industries continues to develop technologies that enable systems to be smaller, for there is less heat (energy) that needs to be dissipated through the system; faster, because increasingly smaller masses respond quickly to the split second impulses generated by the electronics; efficient, for less energy is used and less is wasted to turn the valve on and off which makes the Sturman Valve environmentally friendly.

Sturman was inducted into the United States Space Technology Hall of Fame in 2003 for bringing the Sturman digital valve from the space programme “to benefit planet earth.”