My father happened to be a school president at the same school where he got his degree.
After numerous years in academia, he was asked to bring the seasoned school into the up-to-date age, and that would mean infrastructure enhancements, modernization with technology, and even analysis of the long-standing industrial boilers used to bring warm water to the dorms, sterilization to the labs, and proper sanitization methods to the laundry facilities and school cafeteria.
Not long after becoming president, his head of buildings and grounds came to him to tell him that the industrial boilers needed to be repaired… In the past, the school had done without the industrial steam boilers when repair was needed. That even entailed shutting down the cafeteria and the labs until the boilers were up and operating again! Not to mention the fact that the dorms ran out of warm water in a rush. As a bookish type of guy, our father knew nothing about such concerns. He was unimpressed with the whole idea of a boiler – a mechanical system- bringing the school to a halt just because it needed to be worked on. He recommended to the repair head that he go out and get a rental boiler to hook up while the other boiler was being repaired. He laughed at our father because at that particular time, temporary boiler rental was not actually thought of! I’m sure you know that expression, out of the mouths of babes? Well, that’s what our father happened to be – a babe when it came to things like chillers and boilers. To his mind, though, temporary boiler rental should had been available already. They got to task on the idea, and by the time the boiler had to be shut down to be repaired, the nearby industrial boiler and chiller supplier had devised a plan to bring in a boiler on a sizable truck. The temporary boiler rental became a regular thing in that town, and now it is a regular thing all over the country.