Richard Gurley Drew

Richard Gurley Drew ( born June 22, 1899 in St. Paul, Minnesota, † December 14, 1980 in Santa Barbara, California ) was an American inventor who worked for 3M and the masking tape invented.

When he started in 1923 at 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota, 3M was a manufacturer of sandpaper. When the company tested their new " Wetordry " sandpaper in car shops, Drew learned that in the popular two-tone paint problems were the color transition.

After two years of work in the lab, he invented masking tape in 1925, a two-inch wide strip of paper with a thin adhesive layer.

The first adhesive tape had an adhesive layer along the edge, but not in the center, respectively. In the first experiment it fell off the wagon and the frustrated painter growled: " Take this tape back to Those Scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it. " ( "Bring the tape back to your Scottish bosses and tell them they should attach more glue. " ) with " Scotch " he said " misers ". This was the name of his invention.

1930, then sold also transparent cellophane tape, the forerunner of today under the name " Scotch tape" (USA), " Sellotape " ( Great Britain) and " Tesa " ( Germany ) selling products.