Everything about George De Mestral totally explained
George de Mestral (
June 19,
1907–
February 8,
1990) was an
electrical engineer who
invented Velcro.
Born in
Colombier, near
Lausanne,
Switzerland, de Mestral designed a toy airplane at age twelve and patented it. He attended the
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. After graduation in 1930 he worked in the machine shop of an engineering company. He worked on inventing Velcro for ten years starting in 1941. In 1951 he successfully patented Velcro, selling 60 million yards (about 55,000 km) a year. It was a multi-million dollar company.
His father, Albert, was an agricultural engineer. George was married three times: to Jeanne Schnyder in 1932, Monique Panchaud de Bottens in 1949, and Helen Mary Dale. On his father's death in 1966, de Mestral inherited the family home at Colombier,
château Saint-Saphorin-sur-Morges. He died in
Commugny, Switzerland. Commugny has named an avenue, L'avenue George de Mestral, in his honor. De Mestral was inducted into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame for inventing Velcro. It came to him one day after returning from a hunting trip with his dog in the Alps. He took a close look at the
burrs (seeds) of
burdock that kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur. He examined them under a microscope, and noted their hundreds of "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair. He saw the possibility of binding two materials reversibly in a simple fashion, Velcro got its first break when it was used in the
aerospace industry to help
astronauts maneuver in and out of bulky
space suits. The next major use velcro saw was with skiers, who saw the similarities between their costume and the astronauts, and thus saw the advantages of a suit that was easier to get in and out of.
Scuba and marine gear followed soon after.
When 1978 de Mestral's patent expired he tried unsucessfully to update it, to prevent the flood of low-cost imitations.
De Mestral was inducted into the national inventors hall of fame for his invention.
De Mestral once offered some advice to Velcro executives:
"If any of your employees ask for a two-week holiday to go hunting, say yes."
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