Early years
James B. Lansing was born in 14 January 1902, in Greenridge, Nilwood Township, Macoupin County, Illinois to parents Henry Martini of St. Louis, Missouri and Grace Erbs Martini of Central City, Illinois. His father was a coal mining engineer which meant the family moved around quite a bit in James' early years. He was the ninth of fourteen children. He lived for a short time with the Bullough family in Springfield, Illinois and later took their name when he changed his from Martini to Lansing.
Lansing graduated eighth grade at Lawrence School in Springfield, Illinois, attended Springfield High School and also took courses at a small business college in Springfield.
At a young age he built a Leyden jar to play pranks on his friends. He also built crystal sets which were apparently powerful enough for the signal to reach Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois. Lansing's set was then dismantled when the Navy tracked the source down.
Lansing had worked as an automotive mechanic and attended and automotive school in Detroit courtesy of the dealer he worked for. His mother died on November 1, 1924 when he was 21; he then left home. He met his future wife, Glenna Peterson, in Salt Lake City in 1925. At the time he was working for a radio station as an engineer. He also worked for the Baldwin loudspeaker company and met his future business partner, Ken Decker in the city.
Career
Lansing and Decker moved to Los Angeles where they set up a business manufacturing loudspeakers. It was called the Lansing Manufacturing Company. Just before the company was registered on March 9, 1927 Lansing changed his name from James Martini to James Bullough Lansing at the suggestion of his future wife, Glenna. Most of his brothers had adopted the surname Martin, two of which (Bill and George) came to LA to work with him.
Decker was killed in an airplane crash in 1939 and Lansing Manufacturing began to suffer financial difficulties without his business guidance. Altec Service Corporation bought Lansing Manufacturing in 1941, seeing the company as a valuable source for loudspeaker components. The combined company was named Altec Lansing. James B. Lansing was made VP of Engineering with a five-year contract.
In 1946, Lansing left the company on the day his contract expired and started a new company called "Lansing Sound, Incorporated". Altec Lansing had a problem with that name's similarity to trademarked brands they had developed, so James Bullough Lansing renamed his new company "James B. Lansing Sound, Incorporated". Eventually, this became shortened to JBL on product branding and then officially as the company name.
JBL has a long history of building speakers for recording studios as well as movie theaters. In fact, the speakers developed for use with the first ''talkie'', ''The Jazz Singer,'' in 1928, were from JBL. Historically, the main challenge for JBL was to make speakers that could fill a theater using only the few watts available from the amplifiers of the day, and still be intelligible when playing from behind a screen. The same speakers were used in the studios where movie sound was mixed so the producers could hear what the moviegoers would hear.
Lansing's name lives on in at least two brand names: Altec Lansing and JBL. JBL's speakers provide the sound effects for Universal Studios' King Kong attraction, Dodger Stadium, the Houston Astrodome and myriad concert halls, churches, movie theaters and rock concerts. Audio-conglomerate Harman International is headquartered in Washington state, but most of its operations are in Northridge, Calif. which is home to Harman's biggest subsidiary, stereo speaker-maker JBL Inc.
James Lansing was noted as an innovative engineer, but a poor businessman. As a result of deteriorating business conditions and personal issues, he took his own life by hanging himself from an avocado tree in the courtyard of his factory on September 24, 1949.
on product branding and then officially as the company name.