<i>Springfield Republican</i>: Update: Inventor, writer and winning coach

Posted on 15 November 2007 | 0 Comments

Tags: ,

By Tom Shea Update time. Visiting subjects of past columns. His legacy: Lifetime of ideas for a better world (Sept. 25, 2004) Carm Scuderi died five years ago. He was 77. His idea lives. The son of Sicilian immigrants, he believed that you could accomplish anything you put your mind to, and instilled the same attitude in his eight children when they grew up on Springfield's Prospect Street. Carm was a Navy man in World War II. He had two hobbies - his family and work. Even when the family went to the beach, he'd bring a pad and pencil. He was a workaholic, but never missed an event his children were involved in. And, every night, he insisted on washing the dishes. It was his way of thanking his wife, Alvera, for another delicious meal. After graduating in 1952 from the University of Massachusetts, Carm spent nearly 50 years inventing, developing, testing, producing and commercializing technology while working for and consulting with the Navy, Air Force, Hamilton Standard, Raytheon. At 73, Carm decided to reinvent the internal combustion engine. "The internal combustion engine is only 33 percent efficient," Sal Scuderi, Carm's second son, told me four years ago. "My father thought he could do better." Working with old textbooks from UMass undergraduate days, an out-of-date computer, paper, pencil and calculator, Carm came up with a two-paired cylinder connected to a gas transfer chamber. Last month, The New York Times featured the Scuderi split-cycle engine. It reported that the Scuderi Group of West Springfield is preparing diesel and gasoline prototypes for release by 2009. Read the rest of the story.