Eugene Polley
Eugene Joseph Polley ( born November 29, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois as Theodore Eugene Polley, † 20 May, 2012 Downers Grove ) was an American engineer who invented, among other things, the wireless remote control for televisions.
Life
Polley studied at the City Colleges of Chicago and at the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), this left but for financial reasons not finish and took a job as a shelf filler at the Zenith Electronics Corporation. Later he worked in the development department of the company in which he developed radar systems for the Army during the Second World War.
In 1955 he developed the first wireless remote control that came on the market as a Flash -Matic. Later on, he dealt among other things with video cassettes, car radio with push buttons and the development of the video CD. Overall Polley held 18 patents.
After 47 years of service to the company in 1982, he went into retirement. In May 2012, Polley died at the age of 96 years. Polley was married and the father of a son and a daughter.