Richard drew inventor of duct tape
Richard drew inventor of duct tape gun.
How has he transformed the scene?
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1899, Richard Gurley Drew was 22 years old and a banjo player in the local “Athletic Orchestra” when he applied for a job he saw posted in the newspaper.
The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company—a modest locally based manufacturer of sandpaper— was looking for a lab technician.
Richard drew inventor of duct tape
In his letter of application, young Drew noted his banjo playing, his year as a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Minnesota, the correspondence school course he was taking in machine design, and his experience driving a tractor.
He was hired.
“He created a greenhouse environment, a skunkworks, where we could do anything, try anything. When you’re an oddball in a permissive environment, very often things turn out well.”
Paul Hanson, retired 3M technical director, (in) A Century of Innovation – The 3M Story
A few years later, while testing sandpaper samples at an auto body shop, Drew noticed the painters’ struggles w