The Secret Box – everybody should have one, if you don’t have one – find out if you can make one. Mine holds some prototypes, failed ideas, and failed wacky solutions I have attempted over my years here at EXAIR. There are also a couple of successes.

The box represents, in some way, the flexibility of EXAIR to allow new ideas and their willingness to take risks on a crazy (read creative) idea now and then. Many of these trials and failures also kept a project going, they were just a momentary stop along the way to a solution.

It also gives me a chance, when having conversations with newer Application Engineers, to say something like “let me look in my secret box” and then have a discussion about something we have tried in the past. This has been helpful in providing information to prevent ending up at the same failure twice, but perhaps developing a new failure and or solution.

If you have an application which may benefit from some creativity let us know, EXAIR has been encouraging it for 28 years now. And don’t knock the Secret Box – and don’t be afraid to fail.

Remember these words of Thomas Edison:

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward”

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com