While driving through an automatic carwash in 1971, George Ballas watched the whirling nylon bristles glide around the contour of his vehicle and wondered whether he could adapt the technology to remove the weeds around trees in his yard.
At home, he punched holes in a tin can, threaded it with wire and fishing line, and bolted it to a rotating lawn edger. He called it the Weed Eater, and when he couldn’t sell the concept, he founded a company and built it into a $40-million-a-year business.
And thank heaven he did. Sadly, the departure of Mr. Ballas leaves the field wide open for Al Gore to say that it was his idea all along.
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