The founder who lost his company: Vincent Bendix, printed as a loss

1924–1945 · SOUTH BEND (BOUNDARY) · A LOSS, NOT A TRIUMPH

Vincent Bendix founded his corporation in South Bend in 1924, on the strength of the Bendix drive starter patent (filed 2 May 1914) and the Perrot brake patents he acquired that year; General Motors bought a 24 percent interest the same year, to watch aviation developments, not to run the firm. In 1929 he branched the company into aeronautics and restructured it as Bendix Aviation Corporation — and there the founder's grip ends in the record this section can print: the corporation that bore his name grew into a vast automotive-aviation combine run as a company, not as Vincent Bendix's instrument, and the founder's own last venture was a new company of his own founding, Bendix Helicopters, Inc. (organized 1942–43, at Stratford, Connecticut) — a man starting again, in helicopters, because the first company was no longer his to start with. He died in New York on 27 March 1945; Bendix Helicopters, undercapitalized, closed in 1949 and its assets were auctioned to the Gyrodyne Company of America. No founder-lost-his-company stands in Osceola's record; the town's firms died with their families or were never sold out from under them.

Sources: Bendix Corporation record — founded 1924, South Bend, by Vincent Bendix; the 2 May 1914 drive patent; GM's 24 percent interest, 1924, and its sale in 1948; Bendix Aviation restructure, 1929. Britannica Money, Vincent Bendix — the 1924 South Bend factory; the 1931 Bendix Trophy; Bendix Helicopters organized 1942; died New York, 27 March 1945. Bendix Helicopters record — founded 1943 at Stratford; factory sold January 1947; closed 1949; assets to Gyrodyne. Residue settler: the Bendix corporate / court record for the loss of control at instrument strength.