In the Summer 1990 issue of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, a feature article about “dream makers” spotlighted inventions from the minds of Tech alumni, students and faculty. Some, like Elmer’s glue, had become household names, and others had become mainstays in industry. Alumnus Joe Byrd’s invention was one of the latter.
Joseph P. Byrd III, inventor of the oil pump known by oilmen simply as the “grasshopper,” died Oct. 6 in Cumming, Ga. He was 94.
Mr. Byrd, GE 38, created the Mark II, a beam-type oil field pumping machine, which became the industry standard, in the 1950s. He told Tech Topics in 1995 that he had consulted a graph and formula published in a 1925 revision of a Georgia Tech textbook, originally published in 1903, when designing the machine. The first pump went into operation in the Denver-Julesberg Basin in 1957.
Mr. Byrd founded Oilfield Equipment Corp. in Denver in the mid-1950s and served as its president until 1961, when Texas-based Lufkin Industries acquired the rights to manufacture and market the Mark II. Mr. Byrd joined the company as a consultant and retired as director of research and development.
In 1971, the Mark II received the Meritorious Award for Engineering Innovation at the International Petroleum Exposition. The machine was chosen for permanent exhibition in the Smithsonian during the 1976 U.S. bicentennial celebration, according to the 1990 Alumni Magazine article, which said, “Although the pump in the Smithsonian is the smallest unit in the line, it is one of the largest man-made items in the museum.”
A native of Tulsa, Okla., Mr. Byrd was a member of the track and cross-country teams at Georgia Tech, as well as the Technique staff and Phi Delta Theta fraternity. As an alumnus, he organized the Georgia Tech Club of Tulsa in 1949.
He worked as a naval architect and marine engineer with the government before resigning in the 1940s to join the Navy. He served in the North Pacific as a radar and electronics officer aboard the USS Trenton during World War II and received the Bronze Star. He retired from the Navy Reserve as a lieutenant commander.
In 2003, he gave Georgia Tech memorial plaques honoring the heroism of the Institute’s four Medal of Honor recipients. The plaques are on display near the plaza entrance of the campus’ Wardlaw Center.
Mr. Byrd, who was a former member of the Georgia Tech National Advisory Board, was inducted into the Institute’s Engineering Hall of Fame in 1994.
Survivors include his wife, Mary Elizabeth Mead Byrd; sons William E. Byrd, IE 69, and Joseph P. Byrd IV; and daughter Susan Merrill.
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