Mickey Finn (inventor)
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Charles A. "Mickey" Finn (b. June 21, 1938) is an American inventor who specialized in designing and producing state-of-the-art weapons systems for the U.S. military. He retired from defense work and began designing sporting equipment, including the Mickey Finn T-Bar™ Putter, widely considered one of the finest golf putters on the market.
[edit] Background
For thirty years Finn designed weapons systems for the U.S. military. His expertise included knives, sniper rifles, riflescopes, silencers, and bayonets. Finn worked directly with top military brass and three-letter agencies. When U.S. forces attempted to retrieve the hostages from Iran, invaded Grenada, and captured Manuel Noriega in Panama, they relied on Mickey Finn for state-of-the art, reliable weapons systems. In the industry he was referred to as "Q", after the special weapons supplier Q in the James Bond movies, and the name of his original research company (Qual-A-Tec).
Access to Finn's expertise was limited to top military and government agencies on a need-to-know basis. After extensive research into black operations, author Tom Clancy used Finn's name to add an extra measure of realism to The Cardinal of the Kremlin (page 466). Outed by Clancy, he retired from the defense industry, and set out into the business world creating an award-winning line of military and hunting knives. In 1987 Arthur Young Entrepreneurial Services honored Mickey Finn for his ingenuity, hard work, and innovation.
Finn won the U.S. Army contract to design and build the M9 bayonet for the M16 rifle. Out of 49 companies that bid on the contract, Finn won because his bayonet was the only one tested that had zero percent test failure — no other company was even close. He and the M9 were profiled in the January 5, 1987 issue of People Magazine.
[edit] Quotations
- "Everything I design is the best, regardless of cost. In the weapons industry, if what you make has defects it costs lives. I couldn't live with that type of guilt."
