Why subscribe?

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.

About Inventor’s Mind

I’m Herbert Roberts — a licensed Professional Engineer. Explainer and forteller of the Big Picture.

That’s the job, stated plainly: I was close enough to the decisions to see them made, and I’ve stayed long enough to watch what they actually cost. This publication is where I trace both directions — the pattern behind a failure that already happened, and the pattern in a decision being made right now whose bill won’t come due for another twenty years.

I’ve spent 32 years in aviation R&D and eight-plus years analyzing accidents for attorneys under my P.E. license — the second job is translating engineering into language a jury can act on. Along the way: 62 patents, a Six Sigma Black Belt, two decades of TRIZ practice. None of that is the point of a post. It’s the standing I write from.

What you’ll find here:

The Cancelled File — programs the institution killed, and what the decision actually cost the people who never got a vote.

The Great Sucking Sound — where tribal engineering knowledge goes when nobody’s forced to stay long enough to carry it.

Built for the Fulda Gap — three platforms built for a war that never came, watched from the inside.

Standalone pieces on durability, judgment, and the gap between what an organization says it’s optimizing for and what it actually is.

I write in the register I’d use in a deposition: declarative, evidence-first, no performing certainty I don’t have. If you’ve sat in a room and watched a decision get made that took years to reveal its real cost, you’ll recognize the shape of these stories.

Publishing twice weekly. Subscribe to get new posts as they go up.