Robert Abplanalp
Robert Henry ( Bob) Abplanalp ( April 4, 1922 in New York City; † August 30, 2003 in Bronxville, New York ) was an American inventor Swiss origin. He is the inventor of the one-inch aerosol valve and founder of Precision Valve Corporation. Politically, he was committed to the Republican Party and was one of the closest friends of Richard Nixon, whom he supported financially and morally.
Life
Robert Abplanalp was born as the son of Swiss immigrants in the Bronx. He went to Fordham Preparatory School (also known as Fordham Prep. Known ), a private Jesuit school for boys. After finishing school, he studied engineering at Villanova University in Radnor Township (northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). However, before a final he left the university and opened his own small machine shop. In 1943 he was drafted into the U.S. armed forces and took part in the fighting in the European theater of war.
After the end of World War II, he worked again in his own workshop. In 1949 a customer to repair a leaking valve on an aerosol asked him. Abplanalp fiddled it around to improve it, and invented in the course of his experiments a valve ( the later so-called one-inch valve) which made it possible to liquids, which were in a can to spray with the help of an added blowing agent.
The valve could be easily and cheaply mass-produced. The hitherto far too great weight of the corresponding aerosols has been significantly reduced by the use of much lighter aluminum, so now all sorts of substances in spray cans could be cheap, and yet easy to use, offered. Thus the triumph of the spray could begin. Abplanalp his invention he patented and founded in 1949 with two partners, the Precision Valve Corporation in Yonkers. The late 50s Abplanalp bought the shares of the two co-founders and became the sole owner.
In 1950 were around in his company. 15 000 000 spray cans manufactured for the U.S. market, and soon after there were approx. 1 billion aerosol containers per year. It was the beginning of Abplanalps business empire. In 1961, PVC in Germany, the first foreign branch. This was followed by plants in Mexico and Japan (1963 /64), Canada, France, Australia, Argentina, South Africa (1966 /68), Italy, Brazil (1970 /71), Spain ( 1977), Singapore, Venezuela (1979 ), England (1983 ), India ( 1987), China (1994 ), South Korea, Ukraine ( 1995), Thailand ( 1997). The Precision Valve Corporation was the leader on the world market. In 2004 the company introduced rd. 4 billion cans a year ago and held more than 300 patents from this production. The controversial propellants CFCs ( chlorofluorocarbons ) - the hairspray, inter alia, in the '80s brought into disrepute - have since been replaced by other substances.
In 1956 married Robert Abplanalp Josephine Sloboda, who had previously worked for one of its supplier companies. The couple had two children. In later life Abplanalp joined the Republican Party and financially supported numerous campaigns. After Richard Nixon had then lost the 1962 election to the governorship of California in 1960 and the presidential election campaign, the two men also got to know personally and were soon friends intimately with each other.
Nixon's law firm represented from then on Abplanalps Precision Valve Corporation. When Nixon was then acquired in 1969, one of the homes of his friend, Senator George Smathers, in Key Biscayne, Florida, moved the two spatially close together. Abplanalp had an estate next door. Because many of Nixon's visits to Key Biscayne - about fifty times during his presidency - got his domicile thereat the term " Florida White House ".
Abplanalp was a member of Nixon's so-called "Kitchen Cabinet " which is also the evangelist Billy Graham and the president / owner of the Key Biscayne Bank Charles Gregory " Bebe " Rebozo belonged. And so it was almost a given that Nixon often made with his family vacation on Walker 's Cay, Abplanalps 125 - acre large private island in the Bahamas that he - was invited to fish for Abplanalps yacht and Abplanalp 625 000 - usually accompanied by Rebozo borrowed dollars got when he wanted to buy his home in San Clemente.
Abplanalp and his wife donated large sums to organizations of the Roman Catholic Church. In recognition was awarded two 1971 awards of the Order of Malta and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in the year.
As Abplanalp was once asked by a journalist how he explain himself to his business success, he replied self-deprecating:
" Edison Said genius which 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. I say it 's 2 % inspiration, 8% work, and 90 % luck. 'm A lucky guy. "
( " Edison once said genius is 99% perspiration ( work ) and 1% inspiration. I say it is 2 % inspiration, 8% work and 90 % luck. I have been just lucky. " )