The inventor of the Super Soaker is a nuclear engineer named Dr. Lonnie Johnson (a Tuskegee graduate - go HBCUs), who was employed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California as a spacecraft systems engineer on the Galileo mission to Jupiter.
In 1992 (a year when the Super Soaker garnered $200 million in retail sales), the Cobb Chamber of Commerce named Johnson Research & Development (Dr. Johnson's company) "Small Business of the Year."
Johnson Research & Development was also awarded a contract with NASA to develop the Johnson Tube ®, an innovative refrigeration system that eliminates the need for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Just thought I would add that.