Ermal C. Fraze, Date of Birth, Date of Death

    

Ermal C. Fraze

American engineer, inventor of the pull-tab opener for beverage cans

Date of Birth: 16-Sep-1913

Date of Death: 26-Oct-1989

Profession: engineer, inventor

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Ermal C. Fraze

  • Ermal Cleon "Ernie" Fraze (September 16, 1913 – October 26, 1989) was an engineer who invented the pull-tab opener used in beverage cans.
  • Fraze was born on a farm near Muncie, Indiana, but later moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he assembled novelties for Cracker Jack boxes.
  • He started his career in Ohio as a machine tool operator in the 1940s.
  • Using a loan from his wife, Martha, he established the Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing Company, his own machine tool business in 1949.
  • The company produced tools such as improved gun barrels for war planes, usually for the industries, e.g.: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, General Electric and Ford.
  • Fraze patented many of his innovations and would go on to obtain a degree at Kettering University.In 1959, while at a picnic with friends and family, Fraze discovered he had left his "church key" can opener at home, forcing him to use a car bumper to open cans of beer.
  • Fraze decided to create an improved beverage opening method that would eliminate the need for a separate device, leading to his creation of the pull-tab opener. His first design included a lever that pierced a hole in the top of the can, but this caused a safety hazard as it produced sharp edges that could cut the user's finger.
  • Later that year, he established a mechanism known as the "pull-tab" can, with its users simply being required to pull a removable tab to open the drink.
  • He received U.S.
  • patent No.
  • 3,349,949 for the invention in 1963, and subsequently sold it to Alcoa.
  • By 1965, around 75% of U.S.
  • breweries were using them, but in the mid-1970s, pressure from environmentalists due to litter led to the development of the non-removable tabs used today.
  • By 1980, his company was supplying can-end machinery worldwide making over $500 million in annual revenue.Ermal Fraze died in 1989, in Kettering, Ohio from a brain tumor.
  • Soon after his death, the family sold the Dayton Reliable Tool Company to business managers, but it remained in Dayton.

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