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Radio- controlled mower still cutting it after 25 years

Staff photo by Fritz Busch Jack Schlumpberger of Courtland, holds the remote control for an electric lawn mower that William, back row, left; and Jeff Eibner, right, built 25 years ago and displayed at the Minnesota Inventors Congress in Redwood Falls. Aaron Schlumpberger of Courtland is pictured behind Jack.

NEW ULM — Twenty-five years ago, New Ulm brothers William and Jeff Eibner invented a remote-controlled, electric lawn mower they displayed at the Minnesota Inventor’s Congress (MIC) in Redwood Falls.

The brothers were looking for an investor back then to help put the mower into production. They never found one, but today, the prototype mower is still clipping the New Ulm lawn for William Eibner.

The Eibners said they were motivated to build the lawn mower by the 1989 comedy-science fiction movie “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”

The movie is about an inventor who accidentally shrinks his and his next door neighbor’s kids to a quarter of an inch with an electromagnetic, shrinking machine.

Then the inventor accidentally throws the kids out with the trash, before they battle insects and other obstacles — including their dad’s remote-controlled lawnmower — in the back yard, before getting back into the house.

A 1995 Journal story about the Eibners at the MIC, read that the Eibner brothers and almost 10 other inventors at the MIC, hoped to meet a future business partner there. Other inventions at the event included an electric fence and a weed eater.

The Eibners said using a zig-zag mowing pattern, recommended by electric mower makers, eliminated electrical cord problems.

Minnesota Public Radio interviewed them about their invention 25 years ago.

“A number of people told me they heard our story on the radio,” William said.

The Eibners said they never found a business partner for their invention, but both of them studied engineering and became engineers.

William Eibner continues to use the mower to cut his grass in New Ulm.

A 1984 New Ulm Cathedral High School graduate, William Eibner worked at Associated Milk Producers, Inc. in New Ulm for two years after high school. He later worked at 3M in New Ulm as an electronics technician and took night classes at Mankato Area Vocational-Technical School.

William worked for 3M in St. Paul during his 30s and 40s before moving back to New Ulm in October of 2016.

“I made a random call to the New Ulm 3M plant a few years ago and it so happened a job I wanted to do was open here, so I moved back,” William Eibner said.

Jeff Eibner studied at Minnesota State University, Mankato, earning a manufacturing engineering degree before going to work in the Twin Cities. He has fond memories of the Christmas presents he got from William decades ago.

“I remember getting homemade robots that William made. He would drive them out of the boxes they were wrapped in,” Jeff Eibner said.

William Eibner said he was recently diagnosed with schwannomatosis, a rear genetic disorder in which tumors grow on peripheral nerves in the body.

“I had a pain in my calf about 10 years ago, got an MRI and later learned it was a tumor,” William said.

The Eibner brothers are the great grandsons of Willibald Eibner, who operated a popular downtown New Ulm restaurant that was in business for 75 years. The business was known for its Art Deco design with a granite and glass block front. Neon signs featuring fountain service, a bakery, lunches, ice cream, candy and upstairs dining.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com)

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