Clyde Eppard was an Electrical Engineering graduate of Iowa State University in the Class of 1928, and spent his entire career in the electrical utility industry with Union Electric Power retiring as Vice-President of Operations and Assistant to the CEO in 1969. He was a native of Redfield, Iowa and worked his way through Iowa State serving as a “Lineman” for the local power company. He was an “Engineer’s Engineer” possessing hands on skills, theoretical skills and abundance of common sense. He was so hands on that he even built his own home upon retirement running the dozer to clear the land and dig his basement, to designing and installing a radiant floor heating system, a heat pump air conditioning system, and using a sustainable “Bermuda Roof” rain water collection system to have his downspouts feed into large underground water tank which in turn supplied water to the home and a large gravity fed irrigation system for his large garden. He is best known for his patents for coal unloading systems for barges and rail cars as well as the design, construction and operation of two large power plants in the Midwest.