Richard Gurley was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota back in 1899. Sorry but that’s about all I have for his childhood, or schooling information, nothing on who his parents were and so on, you know the drill. So, what say let’s get to the rest of the story.
In 1920, you would find Richard working for the 3M company in St. Paul Minnesota, which at the time was a manufacturer of sandpaper. Richard was working on a new Wetordry sandpaper, when he noticed as the auto paint shops were trying to create a two-tone paintjob they were having difficulty at managing the borders between the two different colors.
That sit in motion something that Richard will go down in the history books for. It took him two years but he invented the first masking tape in 1922. It was a two-inch-wide tan paper strip backed with a light pressure-sensitive adhesive. In 1930, Richard Gurley Drew invented the world’s first transparent cellophane adhesive tape, thus setting in motion 3M’s survival. You may recognize the name attached to the cellophane tape “Scotch Brand”. He died in Santa Barbara, California in 1960 at 81. Until tomorrow keep a smile on your face and pass it on to someone in need
Comments(17)