You have some amazing neighbors

He holds 36 patents and 40 Bonneville National land speed records.

He’s the man who designed the famous YF-23 Stealth Fighter and is working feverishly now on what could become the world’s first all-electric jetliner.

He’s privy to defense secrets and futuristic projects with the potential to start — or prevent — World War III.

And he lives in Coeur d’Alene.

This issue of The Business Journal of North Idaho offers just a peek into the fascinating career of Darold B. Cummings, but what seems most astonishing is that he’s flown under the radar for so long. Cummings has been exercising his aerodynamic brilliance based in the Lake City for 15 years. Who knew?

It’s a fact that with the internet, highly skilled people can live just about anywhere and work remotely. That’s true of the 74-year-old Cummings, who still can be summoned on a moment’s notice to bring his big brain to, say, Texas for some high-level and exceedingly confidential collaboration. But Cummings and his wife, Karen, could clearly afford to live anywhere in the world. They chose Coeur d’Alene and revel in that reality every single day.

If his name rings a bell, it could be because Darold was recently featured in a front page Coeur d’Alene Press story. Cummings guided 25 local teen girls through a creative workshop very similar to one he’s taught for years at the U.S. Air Force Academy and elsewhere. The workshop is as fun as it is intellectually invigorating, the young ladies attested. Know what else is fun? The fact that Cummings was so excited to discover that just hours after publication here, the story was distributed broadly through a national engineering newsletter. He was excited for The Press more than for himself.

To think that this quiet industry giant has lived here all these years, like the late, great aviation inventor Dr. Forrest Bird and SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, can’t help but lead to another question: Who else?

Join us on the journey to find out.