Donald E. Bently

Donald E. Bently
Donald Emory Bently
Born	Donald Emory Bently[1] (1924-10-18)October 18, 1924 Cleveland, Ohio, US
Died	October 1, 2012(2012-10-01) (aged 87) Carson Valley, Nevada, US
Resting place	Greenwood Cemetery, Muscatine, Iowa
Occupation(s)	Engineer, inventor, businessman, philanthropist
Known for	Inventor of eddy current proximity transducer Founder of Bently Nevada
Spouses	Verna Francis Holt ​ (after 1948)​ Susan Lorraine Pumphrey ​ ​ (m. 1962⁠–⁠1981)​
Children	1

Donald E. Bently (October 18, 1924 – October 1, 2012^[2]) was a globally recognized authority on rotor dynamics and vibration monitoring and diagnostics,^[3] and an American entrepreneur, engineer, and philanthropist. He founded Bently Nevada Corporation in October, 1961, where he performed pioneering work in the field of instrumentation for measuring the mechanical condition of rotating machinery. He designed the first commercially successful eddy current proximity transducer. It became the de facto standard when the American Petroleum Institute adopted the proximity probe as the device for measuring acceptable shaft vibration during factory acceptance testing of centrifugal compressors.

He was the company's president and later CEO until it attained $250 million in annual sales, when he sold it in February, 2002 to GE Energy. In 2017 GE merged it into Baker Hughes. The company continues to design, manufacture, and market vibration monitoring and diagnostic products and services as a subsidiary of the Baker Hughes Company. Following the sale of Bently Nevada, Bently remained active in his other family-owned businesses representing a diverse range of interests including rotordynamics, agriculture, biofuels, real estate, externally pressurized fluid bearings, and machinery diagnostics.