Richard Mark Milton's Obituary
Richard Mark Milton
Funeral services for Richard Mark Milton, 55, of Longview will be held at 10 AM Tuesday, June 30, 2009 in the Chapel of Rader Funeral Home of Longview with the Reverend Jerry Turner and David Lindwall officiating. Burial will follow in Danville Cemetery in Kilgore.
Richard Mark Milton was born on April, 25, 1954 in Shreveport, LA. He attended elementary school in Corpus Christi and Baton Rouge, LA. He attended High School in Corpus Christi and graduated in Austin. After short hitch in the U.S. Navy, he attended the University of Texas working on a degree in Electrical engineering. His first job was with the Texas House of Representatives where he designed and built an electronic voting board that allowed the Legislators to vote from their desks. Their vote would show on the large board positioned on the front wall of the chamber. During this time he came up with the idea of lighting the red marker balls that are used on the high voltage wires that distributed electricity to various parts of the United States. He discovered that the electric field surrounding the cables that carried the electric current would illuminate a particular gas. He then set about constructing a large red marker ball fitted with a glass tubing which was filled with this gas. It was much like the neon tubing you see every day used in neon signs. He spent the next ten years perfecting the invention and getting it approved by the FAA in Washington DC.
He formed a company called Powermark, INC. Which held national and international patents on the process and set up shop to start manufacturing. The first sale was to a distributor in Canada. The second was to the city of Austin for use around hospitals to make it safer for the helicopters to land at the hospital sites. That was many years ago and they are still lighted. They require no electricity. The electric field around the wire illuminates them.
There are many plane crashes each year caused by night flying into "High Lines" that the pilot cannot see at night. This will eventually save many lives.
The reflective highway markers you see in your headlights while driving at night have to be anchored to withstand the I'm-pact of car after car without being re-placed. He solved the problem by inventing a type of anchor that would stand up to being run over. Prior to this they were metal and to be replaced every time a car hit one, which was often. He sold the patent to this anchor and it is still being used by the manufacturer of the upright reflective marker.
In 1994 he received the "International Inventor of the Year" award which was given at the annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malasia.
He was preceded in death by one brother, Vernon G. Milton. He is survived by his parents, Vernon R. Milton and Leona Tucker Milton of Longview; one sister, Linda Milton Martin of Austin; one NE-phew, Michael G. Martin and his wife Allisyn Paino of Austin; one niece, Michelle Martin Grether and her husband Todd Grether of Dallas; and several aunts, uncles, cousins and many friends.
We wish to thank Dr. Roger W. Kiser and his physician assistant, Linda Oswalt; Texas Home Health Hospice and Clairmont Longview for their kind care and attention to Richard's needs.
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