Martin Lane Scheiner (September 1, 1922 – January 21, 1992) was an American inventor of electronics devices for medical purposes. He founded Electronics for Medicine in 1950, and served as president and research director until selling it to

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

in 1979. Scheiner was a dedicated traveler and passionate about social causes.

Early life and education

Scheiner was born in Bronx, New York, and grew up in

Mount Vernon, New York Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, immediately to the north of the Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. As of t ...

with his sisters Olga Coren and twin Barbara Hooper. Scheiner graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1943, where he served as a recording engineer and president of the Columbia University Radio Club, now

WKCR-FM WKCR-FM (89.9 FM) is a radio station licensed to New York, New York, United States. The station is owned by Columbia University and serves the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1941, the station traces its history back to 1908 with the fir ...

. He was later awarded an honorary doctorate from

New York Medical College New York Medical College (NYMC or New York Med) is a private medical school in Valhalla, New York. Founded in 1860, it is a member of the Touro College and University System. NYMC offers advanced degrees through its three schools: the School o ...

Electronics for medicine

After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, Scheiner founded Instrument Laboratories in 1950, which was soon renamed Electronics for Medicine in

White Plains, NY (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = , subdivisi ...

. The company was a pioneer in developing instruments for cardiac catheterization, including for

André Frédéric Cournand André Frédéric Cournand (September 24, 1895 – February 19, 1988) was a French-American physician and physiologist. Biography Cournand was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 along with Werner Forssmann and Dickinson W ...

who co-won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine for this work. EfM was also an early designer and producer of operating room, ICU and CCU monitors. Scheiner moved to Usonia, New York in 1957 and lived there for the rest of his life. The company relocated to

Pleasantville, NY Pleasantville is a village in the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located 30 miles north of Manhattan. The village population was 7,019 at the 2010 census. Pleasantville is home to the secondary campu ...

in the mid-1970s. In 1979 the company was sold to

, and although Scheiner owned less than half the company at the time, he shared over $1 million with his employees, $50 for each month they had worked for him.

Personal life and death

Scheiner's first wife, the former Jane Barsky, with whom he had three children, died of cancer in 1968. He remained married to his second wife, the children's book author

Ann McGovern Ann McGovern Scheiner (née Weinberger; May 25, 1930 – August 8, 2015) was an American writer of more than 55 children's books, selling over 30 million copies. She may be best known for her adaptation of ''Stone Soup'', as well as ''Too Much N ...

, until his death, legally adopting her adult son. He lived in the

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

associated community of

Usonia Historic District Usonia Historic District was a planned community and is now a national historic district located in Town of Mount Pleasant, adjacent to the village of Pleasantville, Westchester County, New York. In 1945, a rural tract was purchased by a coope ...

until his death from Leukemia in 1992 at

Lenox Hill Hospital Lenox Hill Hospital (LHH) is a nationally ranked 450-bed non-profit, tertiary, research and academic medical center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, servicing the tri-state area. LHH is one of the region's many unive ...

References/notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheiner, Martin 1922 births 1992 deaths Columbia University alumni United States Navy personnel of World War II 20th-century American inventors