Copyright 1998 Southam Inc.
The Gazette (Montreal)

September 22, 1998, Tuesday, FINAL EDITION		Pg. A10

Want to be Superman?: Inventor has the suit

NORTH BAY NUGGET

DATELINE: NORTH BAY, Ont.

After 12 years of work and a cost of $ 1.2 million,
inventor Troy Hurtubise has perfected a space-age suit
that he says can withstand bear attacks, firearms, flames
or even a mob armed with bats and knives.

But the latest version of his virtually impregnable suit,
the G-Man Genesis, is being kept under wraps until Oct. 9.

That's when Hurtubise will unveil the suit at the Ig Nobel
Prize Awards at Harvard University, and give a keynote
address to an audience expected to include Nobel Prize
winners.

The Ig Nobel awards celebrate the lighter side of science:
the interesting oddities and scientists who do not fit the
traditional mold, say organizers in Cambridge, Mass.

Hurtubise filed for bankruptcy over a year ago but
investors have since emerged to help fund his project.

"It is beyond comprehension what this thing looks like,"
the 34-year-old inventor said of his suit.

"Even though RoboCop was fiction, if you stuck him beside
the G-Man, he couldn't even stand in his shadow."

Hurtubise, a graduate in natural-resources technology from
Sir Sandford Fleming College in Lindsay, Ont., had
originally planned to use the suit for close-quarter bear
research.

But with the evolution of the suit and the addition of
specialized features, other applications were suggested,
including bomb-disposal, mine rescues, firefighting, riot
control and handling radioactive material.

One scientist was interested in using the suit to study
active volcanoes.

Hurtubise said he can run, jump and drive a car while
wearing the suit.

"This suit will do things we have never done before and
change firefighting forever. I've got better movement than
an astronaut," he said.

"After all these years, it is nice to be thought of
seriously instead of being viewed as some crazy guy out
chasing bears," he added.

GRAPHIC: Photo: JAMES FORSYTH, NORTH BAY NUGGET / Inventor
Troy Hurtubise attracted a crowd in a North Bay park by
demonstrating the cooling unit for the arm of his G-Man
Genesis suit.