Don Bently - A History of Warmth, Intelligence and Prestige

Donald E. Bently was founder, owner and Chief Executive Officer of Bently Nevada Corporation, and President of Bently Pressurized Bearing Corporation. He pioneered the successful commercial use of the eddy current proximity transducer to measure vibration in rotating machinery. This led to the development of data acquisition and processing systems and related services, and created the foundation of a new discipline of Mechanical Engineering, Diagnostics of Machinery Malfunctions. Mr. Bently was active in research on the dynamic behavior of rotating machinery. He published more than 50 papers on the subject of rotating machinery diagnostics using vibration monitoring. Mr. Bently received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering (with distinction) in 1949, as well as a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950, from the University of Iowa. He also did postgraduate work at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a registered professional Engineer in Electrical Engineering in both Nevada and California and a senior member of the IEEE. Mr. Bently was also a Foreign Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Engineering in Russia (1992) and a Visiting Scholar of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China (1992). He was a trustee of the Institute of World Politics, and a member of the ASME Industrial Advisory Board. Mr. Bently was honored as Nevada's outstanding inventor for 1983. In 1987, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Engineering by the University of Nevada, Reno. In 1992, Mr. Bently, who gave many presentations at Vibration Institute meetings, received the Vibration Institute's DECADE Award in 1993.