Space pen inventor’s big idea was helping poor

Saturday, Oct. 21, 2006 | 8:04 a.m.

Millionaire businessman Paul C. Fisher told the Sun in 1988 that his goal in life was to be happy, maintain good health and "believe that your life is worthwhile."

He said people who seek fame or money as their life goals "show a weakness in their psychology.

"You can be poor but be happy if you have that self-respect," he said.

Fisher had it all.

Fisher, the inventor of the Fisher Space Pen who twice ran for president of the United States and was a staunch advocate for tax reforms to help the poor, died Friday in Boulder City after a lengthy illness, his family said. He was 93.

"He was a genius, an idealist and a dreamer," Fisher's attorney and longtime friend Ralph Denton said. "He was always coming up with ideas that would help improve conditions for mankind."

Services are pending for the longtime Southern Nevadan who in 1986 ran for Congress, losing to James Bilbray in the Democratic primary.

"My father was an advocate of the scientific technique in the social sciences - a philosopher as well as an inventor," Cary Fisher of Boulder City said.

"He wanted to create a change for the better in everybody's lives. He campaigned for economic reforms to make lives better for poor people. His major economic approach was to tax assets instead of income. He never gave up in his efforts to convince the government to adopt his plan."

Cary Fisher said his father believed that the universe had a "way of evening things out" and that by helping others one would find happiness - a belief he held long before the space pen, invented in 1965, made him a rich man with more than 20 million in sales.

The space pen writes in any position - including upside down - and in space in zero gravity. It also writes underwater and in extreme heat and cold. The space pen became standard issues to astronauts and also was used on the Soviet Soyuz missions.

Fisher developed the space pen for less than $1 million and got no NASA funding for it. The device has long retailed for $20.

Fisher ran for president in 1960, finishing second to eventual winner John F. Kennedy in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. He ran for president again in 1992. He also made a bid for Congress in Illinois in 1954.

The Fisher Space Pen Co. in Boulder City continues to make innovative writing tools. The company is set to unveil the "Check Guardian," a pressurized pen that prevents checks from being altered through chemical washing.

Born Oct. 10, 1913, in Lebanon, Kan., Fisher earned a bachelor of science degree from Kansas State University in 1939.

Fisher first burst onto the scene as an inventor in 1948 with the creation of a ballpoint pen that used smooth-writing ink cartridges. That year he opened the Fisher Pen Co. on Waveland Avenue, east of Wrigley Field, in Chicago.

NASA tested his space pen for two years before first using it on Apollo 7 in 1968.

In 1976 the pen company's 30,000-square-foot manufacturing plant opened in Boulder City.

In addition to his son Cary, Fisher is survived by two other sons, Morgan Fisher of Henderson and Scott Fisher of Kingman, Ariz.; three daughters, Terry Hough of Fallbrook, Calif., Pomm Hepner of Glendale, Calif., and Marteen Moore of Las Vegas; a brother, Robert Fisher of Lake Forest, Ill.; a sister, Ruth Hall of Davis, Calif.; 14 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.