I first saw Sara Little Turnbull years ago on The Frugal Gourmet when this remarkable woman made a guest appearance and Jeff Smith lauded her amazing contributions to much of the very fabric of American life. As a longtime designer and consultant to the top creators and marketers of products that alter the way we live (Proctor & Gamble, 3M, Corning, Revlon) Turnbull is very likely the least known woman behind the best known ideas in household products. On Frugal Gourmet, Smith mentioned that he had once visited her at work where she was busily taking containers in and out of a strange device. He later realized she had been researching the use of the microwave oven. Turnbull created Corning Ware in the 1950s, guided women through the major cultural changes of the war and post-war era as an editor at House Beautiful, and contributed untold scads of product guidance to top companies. Sitting at the intersection of truly creative design, cultural anthropology, and commerce, she now heads The Process of Change Laboratory at Stanford and influences the next generation to design products for the way people live, not to expect people to conform to products. By teaching them to find the root cause of problems that the products need to solve, she is probably making her most important contribution to the world: more designers who will create items of true value and usefulness to our culture.