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WHEELING — Touchstone Research Laboratory President and CEO Brian Joseph said he has “never had a job.”
But after registering over 30 patents, he said he does enjoy inventing, creating jobs and spinning off companies. Joseph came to the understanding he had a non-traditional way of looking at work and life when he was in his fourth year of studies at what is now West Liberty University. He obtained his degree in biology in 1978.
“I realized I could never get a job because I could never work for anyone. I don’t know why. I just realized I couldn’t,” he said. “So what do you do when you don’t know what to do? I went to graduate school.”
Joseph enrolled at Ohio State University in Columbus, where he found an electron microscope for sale for $100.
“So I thought, 'I’ll start my own research lab,'” he said.
Joseph returned to Wheeling in 1980 and started his lab in the basement of the Mt. Carmel Monastery for $25 a month. Later he would move his operations to 112 14th St. in East Wheeling.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a clue, and it took me 10 years to earn above a poverty wage in salary,” he said. “I lived with my mom most of that time.
“But I took the time to learn the business. That was my education — those 10 years.”
He got his first contract for research and development with the Schenango Company in Pittsburgh for $250,000 a year, then a $1 million annual contract with the 3M corporation followed.
At the end of 1989, he built Building One of the Millenium Center in Triadelphia to house his operations, and companies created there continue to expand on the campus.
As a child, he said he always liked inventing things. As a high school student, he idolized Charles F. Kettering, inventor of the first electric starter for automobiles.
“The whole creativity with science and engineering — I think that’s just awesome,” he said. “That’s what changes the world over and over.
“Touchstone is just that. We invent new things, figure out the marketing and business side of it, then spin them out. That’s what I like to do. That’s my thing.”
Joseph said there are people “better organized, more focused,” and better suited to run a business than he is.
“I’m on the front end. I do the creative stuff,” he said. “There are two kinds of research and development in the world: There are those who invent new things and new markets, and the kind who makes things efficient.
“Those who make things efficient usually don’t create jobs, they decrease jobs. You put your automation in place and make more things with fewer people.”
People on the front end create things, Joseph continued. This tends to be more labor intensive and involved.
"I like the more inventive kind of research," he said. "I specifically like new, game-changing types of things. That is what is fun."
Joseph also likes to enter areas and markets "where there are a lot of players."
"There are certain hot areas of technology where everybody is focused on it," he said. "When I see that, I think that's probably not for me. That's for people with really, really large budgets, and they move at a really high rate of speed.
"And we don't typically have that kind of money to do the super high risk. You're either going to hit it and be super big, or you're going to be one of the thousand people who doesn't make it."
He encourages inventors to think about going with something new that will have a practical use in society.
"Aim off to the side for something different you know has a market, and you just have to solve a few problems to get there," he said.
Success also involves a lot of luck, according to Joseph.
"You have to intensely care about what you're doing," he continued. "People say you have to like or love it. I'm not sure that's exactly true, but you have to be committed to it. And you have to be willing to work tremendously hard for however long it takes."