Meet John Ellis: 60+ Years of Water Engineering

Some inventors spend a career chasing one big idea. John Ellis spent his chasing several — and water just happened to be the one that stuck.

Today, the John Ellis LWM-5 is the product of decades of hands-on engineering work. But long before there was a water machine, there was an engineer who built a career on noticing what other people missed.

An Engineer From the Start

John earned his engineering degree from Lafayette College, specializing in Steam Plant Design — the same discipline of heating, cooling, and pressure systems that would later become central to how the LWM-5 processes water. Even as a student, his instinct for doing things differently stood out: on one project, he designed a torsion bar that outperformed anything else on the market at the time by a factor of 13.

From Aerospace to Invention

John’s engineering path took him through aerospace early on. A connection to the Sikorsky family — sons of the helicopter’s inventor — sparked an interest that led him, at just 17, to invent a measuring device still used to help keep aircraft safe today. That early success carried him into a role as an engineer at Douglas Aerospace, and from there into a career defined by solving problems other people had given up on — including a micro switch capable of operating within a fraction of a millisecond.

Standing His Ground

Not every chapter of John’s engineering career was smooth.

At one point, he identified a mistake in a set of military contract specifications and refused to sign off on equipment he didn’t believe was built to spec — a stand that put him in front of a military tribunal facing a breach of contract claim. He held his position
anyway.

It’s the kind of story that says as much about how he approaches his work today as anything else: John Ellis doesn’t ship something he isn’t willing to stand behind.

Four Decades, One Family Business

That same engineering rigor eventually turned toward water. John’s patented water-processing method — the foundation of every LWM-5 machine — grew out of years of research into how heating, cooling, and treatment cycles affect water at a structural level. What started as one engineer’s curiosity has become a family-owned and -operated business for more than 40 years, with every machine still built to the same standard John set from the beginning.

His work has drawn outside recognition too, including a feature in The Washington Post documenting his long-running contributions as an engineer and inventor.

Still Hands-On

John is now in his mid-90s — and still involved. If you’ve ever called 845-754-8696 with a question about your machine, there’s a real chance you’ve talked to the man himself, or to a team that trained directly under him. That’s not a coincidence; it’s the same hands-on approach that’s defined his work since Lafayette College.

See What Six Decades of Engineering Built

Curious about the machine behind the story? See the LWM-5 →

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