[piano intro] - [Announcer 1] This program was made possible by.

- [Announcer 2] You may have noticed some exciting new changes downtown.

That's thanks to our hardworking community with help from us at Downtown Asheboro Incorporated.

Here at Downtown Asheboro Incorporated, we strive to promote a vibrant downtown environment while preserving the history of our unique architecture, from advising historic building owners on safe and effective development practices to working with City Hall to update regulations that support future growth.

Downtown Asheboro Incorporated.

Growing Asheboro from its roots.

- [Announcer 3] Heart of NC is dedicated to lifting up cultural experiences in Randolph County, like hearing homegrown bluegrass music at the Sunset or Liberty Theaters, taking home pottery from internationally renowned artists in Seagrove, the pottery capital of the country, learning NASCAR's legacy at the Petty Museum, and feeding giraffes at the largest natural habitat zoo in the world.

Heart of NC wants you to know all Randolph County has to offer.

Experience Randolph, the heart of North Carolina.

[soft bright music] - This is new, isn't it?

- What?

- You just got this, didn't you?

- No, I've had this.

- Oh.

- [Jerry] Over 10 years.

- [Dustie] You've never shown me before.

- [Jerry] I know.

I never did.

- [Dustie] Well tell me about it.

- [Jerry] Okay, I'm gonna tell you about it.

What happens is there's two small pipes.

You see over here, to the- - These two?

- Those two.

- [Dustie] Yeah.

- [Jerry] One is for the flame, and then- - [Dustie] It's kind of like a pilot light?

- It's like a pilot, it's exactly, you've got it all figured out.

It's exactly like the pilot light in a fireplace.

- Yeah.

- [Jerry] What that does, it lets hydrogen into the cylinder.

- Okay.

- [Jerry] There's a piston in here.

Then it continues to rotate, and then it opens the main gate, and the flame that's there sees the hydrogen in the cylinder, and it explodes, and drives the piston straight up.

- And energy is created.

[bright inspiring music] Hello, and welcome to "Making North Carolina", a series exploring entrepreneurs as they pursue invention, creation, and impact in their communities.

This episode features Jerry Neal.

Among many things, Jerry is the founder of RF Micro Devices, the company that changed the world of communication with the production of a tiny cellphone chip.

Jerry was born on a farm in Randolph County near Asheboro, North Carolina.

He currently lives in a house on the same property where he was raised.

We asked Jerry to join us at his John Deere Museum at the Linbrook Estate so we could ask him some questions about what keeps him going today.

My name is Dustie Gregson.

Join me as I explore a small part of Jerry's life as an entrepreneur and a philanthropist.

One of my favorite things you took me through your museum, and it was the thing that you made when you were a little boy with the Band-Aid box.

- [Jerry] Yes, the microphone.

- The microphone.

And then just that you're passionate about radios, and things like that, and just restoration, and I just, I would love to, I mean, when I walk by these, I'm like, oh my goodness, I've never seen these before.

- [Jerry] Radio, and communications, of course, has been my number one passion.

- [Dustie] Yes.

- I started on that when I was about eight years old.

I've been asked many times, how in the world did you start?

And it was my father, after he got out of the Second World War, under the GI Bill at the time, you could pick anything you wanted.

My dad really wanted to learn about radio, and then they would send you actual equipment, test equipment, and all kinds of equipment.

And so I started looking at the first one of these books.

I thought, you know, even at eight years old, I can understand this.

So I started taking them, and looking at the tests, and taking the test.

- At eight years old?

- At eight years old, and I was doing really well.

And so I started studying the people.

So I studied Benjamin Franklin, I studied him, because of his famous kite experiment.

- [Dustie] Yes.

- I know enough about electricity.

Don't stick a wire up on a kite [Dustie laughing] and expect to live.

So I knew that, but I was interested in how a radio works, and through these books, I learned how it worked.

My favorite story is about my mother, sitting with the other ladies, and the other ladies were bragging on their sons, and how smart they were, and they were great baseball players, and football players and so forth, and they said Ms. Neal, what does your son do?

And she said he messes with wire.

What I was actually doing was building a Marconi radio transmitter.

It's called a spark transmitter.

- [Dustie] Uh-huh.

- So I started building these transmitters, and a matter of fact, that's what I'm doing now, and all through my life, I've built transmitters.

The interesting thing to me is that the things that I loved when I was seven and eight years old are still the things I love today.

- [Dustie] Yes.

[bright inspiring music] One of the things I find most inspiring about Jerry is his love for history and what it teaches us.

He isn't just a collector, but an avid restorer of machines throughout our industrial history.

I asked Jerry about why he decided to create a museum dedicated to John Deere tractors.

- Okay, let's go back to the beginning.

I got involved with the John Deere because of the man John Deere.

The man John Deere never lived long enough to see the company that he started.

He was a blacksmith.

And he came up with a metal that was very hard, and as you would plow the ground, it would slide over it and polish it, and the more you plowed, the slicker it got, and the better it worked.

And the soil in the Midwest, it was a terrible place to try to farm, because what was happening is that they had to stop all the time and unstick the soil.

So John Deere solved that problem.

And when you think about it, at the time that he did that in 1837, 95% of the people in the United States were farmers.

There's a linkage between industrial development, and what has happened in the farms.

And then if you go back to our founders, they were all farmers, and extremely smart.

So I figured a museum is a great way to start sharing some of this information.

And getting other people interested in it.

And at the same time, it's unusual that a person can have an emotional relationship with a machine.

But that's me.

I do have an emotional attachment to machines.

- So I know, and I have never made one yet, but in October, you do a Steam Day.

- Right.

- So that everyone can come out and watch the steam engine, and all that work.

I would love to see that.

- Yeah, I think it's a lot of fun.

I've got volunteers now for my Steam Day.

And I've got enough volunteers now to where I can spend 100% of my time just talking to individuals.

So I get a chance to talk to small children.

How I'll tell 'em, I says, you know, when I was your size.

- Your age.

[laughing] - I was working with this stuff.

And they say, really?

And I says, yup.

And I try to have a connection to them.

But some of them, they find the engines, they love the engines.

And they love the tractors.

So I run some of the big tractors.

By the way, can we just take a minute to talk about the tractors, and what makes them special?

The John Deere was the only company to make a tractor with two cylinders.

It just had two pistons, instead of being vertical and going up and down, they went horizontal.

And the engine was extremely simple.

And the John Deere was the most efficient tractor ever produced.

Even more efficient than the brand new ones that are out now.

John Deere the man, when he passed away, he passed the company to his son, Charles Deere.

And his son never lived long enough to see a tractor.

- Wow.

- So the first two Deeres- - Never saw it.

- They never saw the tractor.

- [Dustie] Is there a favorite?

- Yeah, well, you know.

I've told you the favorite is this one.

The Allis-Chalmers, which my father bought when I was 10.

This thing was what I used all through high school and elementary school to plow other people's gardens.

But this is, if the building was burning, and I could only get one tractor out- - [Dustie] This would be it.

- I'd say save this one.

This engine here was from a sawmill in the eastern part of North Carolina at a place called Potecasi.

This engine, we took it all apart, and brought it out a piece at a time.

What this does, through all these pulleys and so forth, it pulls this generator here.

This generator is one of the first in North Carolina.

It was bought and put into Pinehurst.

And in the daytime, it provided power to run a trolley car that went over to Southern Pines.

- [Dustie] Really?

- [Jerry] Then at night, this thing would provide all the electric power to provide for the light bulbs, in all the hotels.

You know they had all the hotels?

- [Dustie] Yes.

- But this is the generator when it was about new.

So this is quite an antique piece.

Here, this belongs in a real nice museum.

- [Dustie] I think it was already in a real nice museum.

After perusing through a few more of Jerry's projects, Jerry took me outside to his brand new radio antenna.

As you know by now, Jerry has had a passion for radio throughout his life, and now he was getting ready to put his state of the art radio tower to use.

Now when you were younger, you told me about some little stations and things that you did.

- Yeah, I had some, that was to, had a social element.

- [Dustie] Yes.

- [Jerry] To try to get the attention of some young girls.

Those operated on the standard broadcast band, and every afternoon, I would tell them where I was gonna be on the radio dial.

[Dustie laughing] I said just tune in, and you can hear me, and I'll play music just for you.

I don't think it did any good.

[Dustie laughing] It's one of those things, you know.

They probably never tuned, but this is a, this antenna here, is super in the fact that it will amplify the signal by a factor of 10.

What makes it so unique, this special fiberglass is a tube, and so the antenna is a flat copper that's only motor inside of here, and when you turn your radio on, it puts it out to the right length, because the length of that has to be attuned to the certain frequency that you're on.

Anyway, this is a tremendous antenna.

It's the latest technology.

There's, to my knowledge, not a better antenna anywhere.

So my dream would be, since I started studying the life of Marconi, you know, the founder of radio.

Marconi and his family, they got free tickets to be on the Titanic.

And the radio equipment on the Titanic was Marconi.

So he was set out to take his family, and they were going on this maiden voyage, and they had big state rooms and everything all for free.

And Marconi said to his wife, I'm gonna go on ahead.

I've got a lot of work to do.

Go on, and I'll meet you and the two kids in New York.

And two days before the Titanic was to leave, one of her sons got a real terrible flu.

The doctor said it'd be better if he didn't travel.

So she called up, said you know, we're not gonna be able to use those tickets.

I thought wouldn't it be fantastic for me to be on an Atlantic crossing where I'm operating one of these software defined radios communicating through an internet connection back to my station here in Randolph County, and broadcasting around the world?

[bright inspiring music] - We then headed to Jerry's grandfather's house and the house where Jerry grew up, a humble dwelling just across the street from the entrance to his John Deere Museum, and not far from the tremendous Linbrook Hall.

I was curious as to why the Linbrook Hall's construction had become a passion of Jerry's.

You know, I have always loved the stories of you talking about your grandfather taking you on those walks and pouring into you everything he knew about this land, and I know that's why you have such a passion about this space.

I remember the first time when I drove up to Linbrook to build such an incredible, beautiful place here, I'd just love to know the heart behind that.

- This really ties back to the founding fathers of the US.

For several years before we actually started RF Micro Devices, we traveled around, looking at the homes of incredibly educated people.

So I thought, I need to find out what they did, and what kind of a model, not that I figured that I could be like them.

- Right.

- But maybe I could pick up something.

And so one of the things that I found by traveling around, and two weeks ago, looking at James Madison's home, is seeing what purpose is there to have these homes that they had.

How did that play into it?

They had relationships with other people that were extremely intelligent.

But they had these homes that they used to influence other people, and to get those other people to, in many cases, come around to their way of thinking.

- [Dustie] Okay.

- Because they used them as a social venue.

And so I started thinking about the things that I wanted to do, and if I got an opportunity, how would I implement that, and have something that would not be just like a single gift to my community that I really love, but what would be something that would carry on beyond my lifetime?

I wanted something that would not be dated to this particular time.

In particular, Linda had the passion for St. Jude.

And we started inviting people to come in to Linbrook, and we had events there to raise money.

We set up a foundation, as you know, to St. Jude.

And which has been 20 years ago.

- Wow.

[bright inspiring music] I then asked Jerry about the groundbreaking cellphone chip that had rocketed his company to the top of the communications market, the catalyst for his company's financial success.

So when did RF Micro Devices start?

- Yeah.

Well, the three of us, Powell Seymour, Bill Pratt, and myself, started that in 1991.

Bill was a fantastic engineer.

And Bill said you know, there's a device in there, the power amplifier.

And he said, I think that we can do that with a microchip.

The thing that we didn't know is that the market for the cellphone would be as large as it is.

The first power amplifiers that we built were one millimeter square.

The manufacturers, like Motorola and Nokia, they were paying for that function.

Their actual cost was about 13 to $14.

And we knew that if we could make this microchip work, we could sell it for a dollar and a half.

- [Dustie] Wow.

- We could probably make these for about 25 or 30 cents.

And so a dollar and a half would give us a huge amount of profit.

And we were able to do that, and then we started to expand, and what happened was that there was not enough manufacturing capacity anywhere to do the volume that they needed.

So that was a major change for the company.

We had to build our own way for a fabrication facility, which we promised our investors we'd never do that.

And that was like 75 to $100 million.

- [Dustie] Wow.

- And we built it just so that we could supply Nokia.

- Wow.

- And so once we did that, we had about five what I call near death experiences.

This is where everything just went, blew up.

We just continued to work, and we worked harder, and kept the focus, and so within about eight or nine years, we were shipping a billion dollars worth of chips a year.

- [Dustie] Wow.

- I've had a lot of fun, and a lot of things I've done, but that was probably the most fun period of my life.

- There's a part in your book about sacrifice?

- [Jerry] What you give up.

- [Dustie] What you give up, you know, and that just rings so true, because if you start concentrating on that, you lose focus.

And I think that's what makes, well, it make you special.

[laughing] - Thank you!

That's a great compliment.

- Yes, and I have just, you have been just such an incredible inspiration in my life, because there's been times, and I listened to your stories, and I'm like, I would've quit.

But you know- [Jerry chuckling] I've not quit, and a lot of times, you've come up and said you know what, and you'll give me another story.

And those stories have just been so incredible for me as an entrepreneur starting out.

So I just wanna thank you for that.

- [Jerry] You're welcome.

And you know, it is true that when you're doing what you're passionate about, it's always fun.

One of the most valuable things to me is that I still have the same enthusiasm for what we're doing with Akoustis now, and the microchips that we're making, that I had when we started RF Micro Devices in 1991.

- Wow.

- So it's the same kind of joy in seeing the opportunity, and I think the opportunity is multiplying rather than shrinking.

- Well thank you, Jerry.

- You're welcome.

Thank you.

- [Dustie] And thank you for joining us while we explored a brief glimpse into the life of one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the history of North Carolina.

A modest upbringing built on practicality and perseverance, yielding a revolutionary mind in the world of transmission and connection.

I hope you will join us on our next episode of "Making North Carolina" as we continue to explore the brilliant minds that live all around us.

[bright inspiring music] [bright inspiring music continues] [bright inspiring music continues] [bright inspiring music continues] - [Announcer 2] You may have noticed some exciting new changes downtown.

That's thanks to our hardworking community with help from us at Downtown Asheboro Incorporated.

Here at Downtown Asheboro Incorporated, we strive to promote a vibrant downtown environment while preserving the history of our unique architecture, from advising historic building owners on safe and effective development practices to working with City Hall to update regulations that support future growth, Downtown Asheboro Incorporated.

Growing Asheboro from its roots.

- [Announcer 3] Heart of NC is dedicated to lifting up cultural experiences in Randolph County, like hearing homegrown bluegrass music at the Sunset or Liberty Theaters, taking home pottery from internationally renowned artists in Seagrove, the pottery capital of the country, learning NASCAR's legacy at the Petty Museum, and feeding giraffes at the largest natural habitat zoo in the world.

Heart of NC wants you to know all Randolph County has to offer.

Experience Randolph, the heart of North Carolina.