Now known in Defense Department R&D circles as the "Wright Brothers of the Military," identical twins Geoff and Mike Howe were just six years old they were already known as "Howe and Howe Construction," although at this stage they were disassembling, not constructing. The experiments started with taking apart the toaster and trying to blow up things in the wood stove. At the age of eight, Mike and Geoff built their own one-room log cabin (on their neighbor's property) with the hand axe their mom had given them for their birthday and two years later they created a robotic arm out of bike parts! At age 16, they started tinkering with vehicles, purchasing their first car, a 1974 Nova Super Sport, before they even had driver's licenses.

SCHOOL DAYS

Mike and Geoff both graduated from Kent's Hill School, where Mike was a 4.0 student and the class salutatorian. Geoff was not far behind with a 3.8 GPA with the two-tenths difference traditionally explained away by the distractions brought on by Geoff's more sociable life style. Both boys started taking AP classes as sophomores and Mike took on the additional challenge of college-level courses during his high school senior year. At Bowdoin University, Mike got off to a rocky academic start but eventually bounced back to work on independent study projects sponsored by NASA and NOAA. His major project involved the development of a highly efficient sonar signaling device to repel marine mammals from submerged fishing nets. This and other broad-based engineering experiences energized his boundless passion for creative vehicle design. Meanwhile, Geoff attended the University of Maine for a couple of years and then worked on a fishing boats before taking a job at the water treatment plant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.