Mister Fritz from Eindhoven

Fritz Philips, first scion and real shaper of the Philips corporation died at 100 today. I've always liked this company, especially when they used to use their own higher quality semiconductors and integrated circuits in their many innovative electronics products. (I've the remanants of a touch sensing pre-amp I've been hoping to use for a while now - no need for switches or knobs...very cool, not to mention the incredible projector the DP70, the Todd AO - really the film projector by which all others are compared, century be damned)

It turns out he was a real idealist too, serving time under the Nazis for not breaking a worker's strike and was a recipient of an award from Yad Vashem for his work helping jews during the holocaust.

All this from his relatively unlikely origins as the son of a light bulb factory owner.