A father of invention's cool legacy

A Seminole resident took on lowly ice trays across the nation. His reward: $84.23.

[Times photo: Jim Damaske] Eugene Callahan worked for years as a designer for GE, earning several patents. But he said of refrigerators with ice dispensers: "I couldn't afford one. You never got rich working for the General Electric Co. in those days."

By WILMA NORTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 12, 2000

SEMINOLE -- Every time you push a glass against a lever in the refrigerator door and watch ice tumble down, you can thank Eugene Callahan.

Callahan, 87, invented a device that helps make such convenience possible.

The Seminole man was a designer for General Electric for more than 25 years. He worked in the refrigerator division at GE's Appliance Park in Louisville, Ky., creating parts.

When GE's research and development people came up with an idea, it was up to Callahan and his co-workers to make it happen.

In March 1969, he and a co-worker patented a little gizmo known as "a door closure device with time delay mechanism" that made possible the ice dispenser in the refrigerator door. GE became the first manufacturer to feature an ice and water dispenser that year in its top-of-the-line, side-by-side refrigerator.

Callahan holds six other patents for refrigerator parts, but he is most proud of this one.

"That was he one I am thrilled to death with because I can go out of this world and think I gave everybody in the world something they could use, a little luxury," he said.

The device he designed regulates the flow of ice, allowing a certain number of cubes to fall into a glass before shutting off the chute.

"The very thing that triggers the whole mechanism is a wire less than an inch long, fine as a needle," Callahan said. "One coil goes around a shaft and operates the whole mechanism."

Callahan's bonus from GE for the device: $84.23 after taxes.

He keeps the check stub attached to his original patent document and design drawings.

Because GE paid him to figure out such things, he never got any royalties. "If I'd have been working in the factory and made a suggestion of an icemaker and this and that, I would have gotten a small percentage of what they made," he said.

Andy McLeroy, GE archivist, said a team of designers and engineers created the door dispenser. It was introduced at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago before it was invented, he said.

GE placed a cardboard button on a refrigerator that said, "Press here for water and ice." So many people did, and thought it was a good idea, that GE got a team together to get it done.

Callahan said that much of his work at GE revolved around ice.

Another manufacturer first patented an automatic icemaker, and GE spent years trying to come up with a design, Callahan said. "GE said, "We've got enough brilliant engineers. We don't have to buy a patent from anybody,' " he said. "I probably built as many as 12 different kinds of icemakers, and they wouldn't stand the test for production."

Despite such work, Callahan has never owned a refrigerator with an ice dispenser in the door.

"I couldn't afford one," he said. "You never got rich working for the General Electric Co. in those days."

He retired from GE in 1972, still earning less than $13,000 a year, he said.

Though he didn't make much money from his refrigerator inventions, Callahan made a substantial amount of money from his stock investments after he retired. Last year, he gave a large gift to the American Publishing House for the Blind in Louisville. He doesn't want to say how much the gift was worth, but it was sufficient to endow the $100,000 annual operating cost of the publishing house's museum.

The museum last fall was renamed the Marie and Eugene Callahan Museum.

"He's been very kind to the printing house," said spokesman Gary Mudd.

After Callahan retired, he and wife Marie, who had no children, began traveling and became part-time residents of the Clearwater area. They moved to Clearwater permanently in 1983. She died in 1996.

When they moved into Freedom Square in 1996, the apartment came with a refrigerator. It didn't have an icemaker.

Callahan decided to ask the complex to install one. So the managers did -- in the freezer, not the door.

"That's the closest I've ever come to having (a dispenser) of my own," he said.

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