One can never know what is going to be a relatively large hit among children but when there’s a capacity to capture a market that will intrigue men, women and children then you have something. You have something large. You have something worthy of attention and you are able to capitalize on it in ways you never thought possible. Lonnie G. Johnson was able to do this and he did it well.

Lonnie G. Johnson was born in Alabama in 1949. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees before going on to earn a Ph.D. from Tuskegee University. He worked for Oak Ridge National Laboratory before going into the United States Air Force.

After serving time with the U.S. Air Force, Johnson took a position with NASA. While with NASA, he had the opportunity to work on the Jupiter Galileo Mission. He returned to the Air Force in 1982 where he served at the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska and in California at the Edwards Air Force Base.

1989 brought with it a new life and lifestyle for Johnson. He formed his own company which was an engineering firm. He went on to develop what would become known as the patented Super Soaker water gun. There had never been one like it. Two years passed and the incredible invention had raked in over two hundred million dollars in sales. It was quickly noticed and dubbed the "number one selling toy" in America. Incredibly, the toy has now realized over one billion dollars in sales of the Super Soaker.

Lonnie G Johnson is an author as well as an inventor. He holds over eighty patents and has many patents pending. Johnson has been written about in magazines and other print publications such as TIME and the New York Times. Johnson is a board member on Hank Aaron’s Chasing the Dream Foundation.