Climbing into a cramped attic to wire an electric fan led Bill Keith to one conclusion: There's got to be a better way.

Finding it landed Keith on a list of new inductees into the Society of Innovators of Northwest Indiana.

Keith was named one of six fellows and 23 new members of the society founded three years ago, managing director John Davies said Tuesday.

They will be inducted Thursday, along with two co-recipients of the society's newest honor, the Chanute Prize for Team Innovation.

"We are identifying a network of innovators," from throughout Northwest Indiana, Davies said. "As entrepreneurs, they are an asset to the region."

Keith, 43, of St. John, had been a roofer for 20 years when he came up with an alternative way to cool an attic.

"I came up with using a solar panel," he said.

Often working on just four or five hours' sleep, Keith developed SunRise Solar Powered Attic Fans, which operate on energy from the sun.

"I had an undying passion," he said. "I had this in my brain: I know I can do it. I know I can do it."

Keith found his first big customer in Hawaii, a state already well acquainted with the solar market.

The customer prepaid for 100 fans, sight unseen, Keith said.

The payment provided seed money from a customer to whom Keith remains loyal.

"This was a guy who took a chance on me," he said.

Now in its fifth year of business, SunRise attic fans are manufactured at a plant in Warsaw, Ind., with capacity to produce 1,000 fans a year, and are sold throughout the United States and from Spain to Hong Kong.

Sales this year are expected to surpass 1 million fans, a benchmark for the business, Keith said.

His inclusion in the Society of Innovators "motivates me to do more," Keith said.

"I want people to be inspired, to realize that if you're tinkering in the garage and you have an idea, consider going beyond that."

Other Society of Innovators fellows include:

* Shirley Caylor, who co-founded the Crisis Center, Alternative House, Teen Court, Safe Place and other programs for helping youth in the Miller section of Gary.

* Ramon Dziarski, Ph.D., an Indiana University Northwest School of Medicine senior researcher of a 10-year initiative that discovered three new genes in the human genome to help the body fight disease.

* Johnny Mathis Jr., who launched Livemercial, which innovated new streaming technology and applications in web-based marketing in Valparaiso.

* Ivan Nesch, Ph.D., who has licensed and is beginning to market an advanced X-ray capable of detecting features difficult to image or invisible to normal X-ray technology, at the Purdue Technology Center.

* Emerson Spartz, who created Mugglenet.com, a leading site for Harry Potter fans with 40 million hits a month.

The Chanute Prize for Team Innovation, named after the experiments led by aviator Octave Chanute on Indiana's lakeshore, was awarded to co-recipients St. Margaret Mercy and the Sisters of St. Francis Health Services and to the Hammond Robotics Team, sponsored by Bemcor Division of Beatty International Inc.

St. Margaret Mercy and the Sisters of St. Francis were recognized for applying Lean Six Sigma practices to save lives and improve outcomes for eliminating ventilator assisted pneumonia.

The robotics team won more regional, division and championship banners than any other team in the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Named as members of the Society were:

Richard Bender, Thomas McDermott Jr., Julie Zasada, Shirley Caylor, Judy Jacobi, Ivan Nesch, Art Raby, Robert Palumbo, Larry Alt, Emerson Spartz, Ludmilla Ludkovsky, Stewart McMillan, Doug Tougaw, Gene Diamond, Bill Keith, Bala Arshangalpalli, Shawn-Kristin Reynolds, David Parry, Janice Tazbir, Pinaken Chaubal, Paul Hannah, Dennis Trinkle, Charles Hughes, Johnny Mathis Jr., Rev. Stephan Munsey, Roman Dziarski, Mitch Barloga, Howard Cohen and Christoph Lichtenfeld.