each day, you will find ralph brawn at the headquarters of the company he founded in the 197 0s, the n corporation. he has clients around the globe, but such a successful future seemed unlikely when he was diagnosed with muscular distr dystrophy in 1946. >> my parents were told that i would not live past my teens. >> reporter: he grew up in rural indiana, and he says back then, there were no sidewalks. people like brawn were not welcomed. >> disabled people were looked at in the '40s and early '50s and whatever as most of the time they should be just sitting in a closet somewhere. >> reporter: his way of becoming successful was borne out of necessary. by that time, braun was unable to walk and he needed to be able to get to and from work. so he tapped the love of engineering and cobbled together random parts and created a scooter so he could get on the road. the year was 1963. >> the three-wheel scooters that you see today in the supermarkets and wherever were not -- there was not any such thing. and soy built the first one, a four-wheeler, which i call frankenstein, and i brought the

as a child ralph brawn was told he wouldn't live past his teen years, but he defied the odds as you mighthe company in his hometown now has clients all over the world. each day you'll find ralph braun at the company he founded, the braun corporation. he's been in business 40 years with clients around the globe, but his success seemed unlikely when he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in 1996. >> hi parents were told i probably wouldn't live past my teens. >> braun grew up in indiana. he says back then there were no sidewalks. people like braun were not welcome. >> the same old people were looked at in the '40s and early '50s as most the time of sitting in a closet somewhere. >> his way of becoming successful was born out of necessity. by that time braun was unable to walk but he needed to get to and from work, so he tapped his love of engineering, cobbled together random parts and created scooter so he could get on the road. the year was 1963. >> the three-wheel scooters that you see today in the supermarkets we supermarkets, there wasn't such a thing. so i built the first one a four-