"No one had really focused on that population of athlete, " says Sean Murphy, an advanced products engineer at New Balance.

FORBES: Magazine Article

But Barth, who started as an industrial engineer at Hoover and later rose through the ranks at Johnson Controls, wanted to balance out the three legs of the company--interiors, batteries and building controls.

FORBES: Control Freaks

The second comes from the auto industry where, my interviewee told me, the balance between software and hardware engineers on any given infotainment project is now 50 software engineers to one hardware engineer.

FORBES: Does It Matter That Apple and GE Are Bringing Back Manufacturing?