Charles F. Kettering

Charles Franklin Kettering was an American inventor, engineer and businessman who held 186 patents over his career and became one of the most influential figures in twentieth century automotive engineering. He co-founded the parts supplier Delco and served as head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947, a post from which he drove the development of the electric starting motor that replaced the hand crank on early automobiles and of leaded gasoline, among the most widely adopted automotive innovations of the period. While working with DuPont he oversaw the development of Duco lacquers and enamels, the first practical colored paints usable on mass produced cars, and his work with the Dayton-Wright Company produced the Bug aerial torpedo, considered an early aerial missile. He later advanced practical, lightweight two stroke diesel engines that reshaped locomotive and heavy equipment manufacturing, and in 1927 he founded the philanthropic Kettering Foundation. Kettering was born on August 29, 1876 and died on November 25, 1958.