A biography of Robert W. Fulton, written by his family and submitted by his son Richard Fulton in 2015
Robert William Fulton was born on March 7, 1925 to Clarence & Blanche Fulton in Minneapolis, MN. He was the oldest of three children, including his sister Mary and brother John. His father Clarence owned a dental lab, and was known for making dentures that actually fit. His mother Blanche was a gifted singer and pianist. Music was always a focal point in their home, and each child found an instrument that they liked.
Robert studied piano before moving onto cornet. Mary became an accomplished pianist and organist, and for many years was the accompanist of choice for sacred musical groups or soloists that came to the Twin Cities. Today she has a music ministry to elder care facilities in Minnesota and Michigan that she shares with her husband. John studied trombone, and is now retired from his position as Director of Social Work Services, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Washington, D.C.
When Robert was 10 years old, he fell out of a tree and broke his right elbow. His parents were on their way out to dinner but were concerned when they saw him holding his arm. So to prove there was nothing wrong, he threw his arm out and it folded down the wrong way at the elbow. A hasty trip to the doctor ensued. The doctor assessed the damage, gave the arm a quick twist, snap and crack, then taped his arm to his chest. After several months, the tape was removed and therapy began in the form of carrying weights around to straighten and strengthen his arm. This evolved into running laps around the house while carrying pails of sand. The scars from the tape on his chest and back remained his whole life.
Although no direct lineage has ever been confirmed connecting this Robert Fulton to the Robert Fulton who developed the first commercially successful steamboat, just having the same name opened the door for many comparisons, pranks, etc. When Robert was a boy there was a “hot” new toy train on the market powered by real steam. But when he went to buy one, the store was sold out, so they ordered one for him. The store owner thought it was cute and reported it to the local newspaper which ran the story: “Robert Fulton Buys Steam Engine”.
As a young man he was fascinated with electronics and attended Minneapolis Boys Vocational High School, where he studied drafting, automotive, and radio. About this time, the neighbors got a new dog that slept all day and barked all night. So he rigged up an oscillator with a small amp and speaker and played a high pitched sound out his bedroom window during the day. It drove the dog nuts. By evening when he shut it off, the dog was so exhausted it slept through the night. It only took a couple of days to change the dog’s sleeping habits. Just recently his younger brother John confirmed this story, and said that he was sworn to secrecy at the time.
As a side note, many years later a California company marketed a product called “The Barker–Breaker”. It was a small black box about the size of a pack of cigarettes that emitted a high frequency noise at the push of a button. The manufacturer claimed 80% success in stopping dogs from barking.
When World War II broke out, Uncle Sam came calling for the best and brightest radio electronic students. Robert was one of two students from his high school chosen to be put through the Army Signal Corps electronics engineering course at Illinois Institute of Technology, with heavy emphasis in radar and amplifier technology. Graduation from high school had to wait until 1945. After the war, Robert worked as a radio and electronics repairman for a local Twin Cities retailer, and taught a radio and electronics evening class for two years at National Radio School in Minneapolis, MN. Next, Robert did some contract engineering for a local company that had been a defense contractor during the war. But with his entrepreneurial spirit, he yearned to be out on his own.
Always looking for ways to improve things, he blended his interest in automobiles with his grasp of electronics to develop and market a souped-up ignition system for 6-volt cars, called the “Mir-A-Coil”. In the days when building a better mousetrap resulted in people beating a path to your door, it wasn’t long before the local hot rodders were bringing their cars over for a sharp tune.
In May of 1950, Robert married Marilyn Dexter and started a family. They had two sons, James and Richard. Continuing his interest in music, he developed, trademarked, and marketed Fulton’s Lightening Oil for brass musical instruments. Additionally, there was a Fulton’s Household Oil available. One of the men that Robert studied music under was William Allen Abbott. In addition to being a music educator, Mr. Abbott had directed the Working Boys Band, the Robbinsdale City Band, the University of Minnesota Band, and was a former president of the Minnesota Music Educators Association. Robert and Mr. Abbott became good friends and later business partners. Robert developed, and Mr. Abbott marketed the “Tone-O-Graph”, a device used to tune every instrument in the band to a concert B flat. Robert and Mr. Abbott co-patented this device and they sold like hotcakes.
Robert continued to play the cornet and trumpet throughout his life and was still performing solo work well into his 50’s. There was a time when communities took great civic pride in their city bands, and state-wide band contests were huge annual events. Robert played in the Working Boys Band, the Robbinsdale City Band, the Fridley City Band, and small ensembles such as “The Men of Note”, “Crystal Brass”, and various other unnamed groups.
As a trumpet player, he was again constantly experimenting with improving the instrument. This began with modifications to the mouthpiece and extended to the bends in the tubing, where the braces were located, and the shape and thickness of the bell. He took his engineering ideas to the Schilke Trumpet Company in Chicago, and they produced his mouthpiece design with an isolator ring cut around the cup. Then they made him a one-off trumpet with a 6 inch diameter bell burnished to a thickness of .007 inches. The trumpet and all the mouthpieces were gold-plated. Enclosed is a picture of him holding that horn with one of the mouthpieces in his basement lab. It was a marvelous instrument.
Having been involved with several civic bands, Robert always liked a good march. His favorite band of all time was New York’s Goldman Band, and he had collected nearly every album they ever produced. As a personal highlight, he was able to hear them live in Central Park on a trip to New York in 1965 and met Mr. Goldman in person after the concert. Whenever one of the service bands came to the Twin Cities, or the Minnesota Orchestra performed a concert, he made an attempt to be there.
In the 1960’s Robert developed, patented, and marketed an automotive ignition analyzer. Other products that soon followed were an aircraft ignition analyzer, Fulton Lightening spark plug cleaner (that could be poured down the carburetor or added to the gas tank), and later a portable battery powered car starting unit. As the automotive industry moved to electronic ignition systems, the market for points ignition analyzers eventually dried up.
Somewhere over the years he became enamored with Packard automobiles. He even had a Packard bicycle as a young man. He loved everything about them and always had interesting examples of the marque. As a collector of many things, this was another of his passions. The collection spanned from the 1930’s through 1956. The car he took on his honeymoon with Marilyn was a 1947 Packard Clipper Super 2-Door - a very sleek machine at the time. When he paid $2000 for a new 1955 Packard Clipper Constellation, Marilyn thought he had lost his mind. One of his favorites was a 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk, which had the Packard 352 inch V-8. Of course, Robert built a special 374 inch Packard Caribbean V-8 with two 4-Barrell carburetors and stuffed it in the Hawk. What a blast! When Packard went out of business he was crushed. Over the following years he sold the cars off one by one. The last to go was a 1941 One-Sixty Coupe.
Being interested in music and electronics naturally led him into recording and a life-long relationship with Crown International. He always used Crown tape decks and in addition to being a Crown representative had quite a collection as well. In those days master tapes were edited into a format that would transfer to a master disk for producing vinyl records. Editing the tapes required cutting and splicing at various precise spots. In order to assist with that process, Robert made an editing lever that would manually lift the tape up against the record-playback heads in the deck. Crown later incorporated a similar feature into their production line.
Robert seemed to know everybody. As he expanded his recording business we met some of our musical heroes: Clark Terry, Doc Severinsen, Buddy DeFranco, Urbie Green, Cal Marsh, and Bill Pearce. He was on a first name basis with many professional musicians and directors in the industry, as well as high school and college music educators. Through his networking of friends and associates, he was able to record the Aspen Jazz Festival one year and had some great stories about Zoot Sims. Many of these people were guests in our home either for dinner or listening sessions. Music always filled the air. If it wasn’t an intimate vocal or instrumental piece, it would be pipe organs, choirs, orchestras, or concert bands. Robert loved them all. Throughout his life he directed several church choirs and was involved with several church ensembles. When a missionary would come home on furlough, Robert would put together a care package of recordings they could take back with them to the mission field.
Designing church sound systems was another thing he was passionate about. He insisted the sound system should have a focal point from where the sounds originated, and not squawk at the congregation from the sides. If done properly, the congregation should see it but not hear it. One of his earliest sound systems that he installed in a church had a non-functional volume control. The level was simply preset because he knew the ushers or “sound men” were all a bunch of knob twisters. When he went back to service it a few years later, they had nearly twisted that knob off. Pretty funny.
As he began to focus more and more on recording and the reproduction of sound, this led to producing his own line of loudspeakers, starting with the Model 80. More models were added and systems kept getting larger as he sought to recreate the musical experience of a live performance. Convinced that live music was not bandwidth limited, he continued to search for ways to improve the audio chain. This led to the development of specific audio wire: phono leads, head shell leads, and speaker wire. Long before “Monster Cable” there was Fulton wire. Another product that followed was the record mat, called the “Kinetic Barrier” and finally a moving coil cartridge. In 1983 he patented a new arbor-fit speaker connector which saw only limited production, and in 1986 patented the augmented speaker enclosure used in the J’s and Premiers.
While Robert appreciated classical music and some jazz, he was never a rock-n-roller. He considered it more noise than music – perhaps even sinful. This was probably because it was amplified instead of natural and a lot of the lyrics were questionable. In 1963, the Trash Men came out with the song “ Surfin’ Bird”. Robert thought it was one of the funniest songs he had ever heard, and played it over and over while laughing hysterically. In contrast, Bob Fredere (FMI’s Sales Manager) really liked rock-n-roll and would sneak a few numbers into the demo line-up. It was rumored that Fredere and Tom Moore took Robert to a Moody Blues concert, so he was willing to expand his musical horizons. The 1977 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago was hugely affected by two significant arrivals: “Star Wars”, and Heart’s “Dreamboat Annie” album. You couldn’t walk anywhere without seeing or hearing “Star Wars” or hearing “Magic Man”. So Robert acquiesced and let Fredere play some Heart now and then in the FMI suite.
Robert was an engineer’s engineer who loved to stay on the leading edge of technology and test equipment. Sometimes it seemed that he single-handedly kept Tektronix in business, as he was always adding new equipment to his lab. The Tektronix representative would come to Robert to ask how to set up an experiment or test sequence to help him sell a specific piece of equipment to a certain customer. Robert loved their motto” The Endless Pursuit of Excellence”.
As an engineer and perfectionist, he was always experimenting with ways to make his products better. This was a double-edged sword which caused frustration with customers and dealers alike. In his mind, he felt the inconvenience of an update would be more than offset by the improvement. However, the dealers and customers became reluctant to stock or buy speakers that could so quickly be outdated.
Around 1980, Robert was injured in a motor vehicle accident. As he was slowing for a toll booth near Rockford, IL, his pickup truck was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler whose driver had dozed off. He suffered back and neck injuries, broken ribs, broken nose, and injured knee. It took a long time to heal with nagging pains that seemed to move around but never go away. Not one to run to the doctor with every ache and pain, he put up with a lot for a long time before finally seeking help. The doctors determined that the pain was not all related to his accident’s injuries, but instead was a result of undetected prostate cancer that had spread to his spine. There followed brief remissions, but his fate was sealed. Robert passed away on September 13, 1988.
Robert W. Fulton was a very intelligent, creative, and knowledgeable person who had many, many interests and abilities in many different areas. These interests included cars, mechanics, electricity, amplifiers, recording, audio speakers, electronics, photography, and music to name a few. He was also gifted with the ability ”to fix anything”. In the audio world he was known as the man with the “golden ear.” He was a man who was always thinking, designing something new, striving to make things better, and sometimes causing a bit of conflict or ridicule in the audio world because of it. Ironically, many of those ideas are now accepted as the norm.
Robert’s widow Marilyn is in great health, and is very active in her church and resides in the Twin Cities. Robert’s son James chose a career as a music educator, while son Richard chose a career in the automotive field; both are located in the Twin Cities area.
