10:05 Ion Man: Bill Buckley on magnets, mechanics, and motorsport
At age five, Bill Buckley was driving a tractor on his parents' farm. Mechanically-minded from a young age he grew up around machines, spending hours in the shed with his father or on his own, pulling engines apart and putting them back together.
At aged 10 he built a petrol car for himself - with lawnmower wheels and a kick-start engine hijacked from an old concrete mixer. Now Bill Buckley is best known for his work with electromagnets, that are used in more than 90 percent of the world's silicon chips. His work with magnets began in the mid-1970s when he started work with the Auckland Nuclear Accessory Company - where he was quickly was able to build them faster, and to a higher quality than the Company had been doing. In 1981, a major downturn in the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley coincided with a world-wide recession that hit the US particularly hard.
The Company's magnet business disappeared overnight and went into receivership. Bill bought up a lot of the machinery from them - and started to build his own business. His story is told in the biography Ion Man by Robert Tighe which documents his life, career , and his love of speedway and motorsport. Bill Buckley speaks with Kathryn Ryan.
Photo: Supplied
