Walter L. Shaw had an astonishing 39 patents to his credit. Among the most widely used were; the first burglar alarm that automatically calls the police; the hands free speaker phone; the black box (a toll free calling device), call forwarding; the White House "Red Phone" alert system; a tone generator, which later became the touch tone pad for touch tone dialing; conference calling; extend-a-watts, and voice print recognition. He was never credited for his inventions because of corporate greed (Ma Bell & eventually AT&T). It is time for this man to be recognized for his incredible contributions to the communications industry including things we use every day and take for granted.