Container Inventor Dies, age 92

| September 9, 2011 | 6 Comments

California born engineer and inventor Keith W. (Tant) Tantlinger, he was aged 92 and died at home in Escondido, California last week.

Although strictly speaking he was not the inventor of the container, instead, he invented the corner casting and twist lock system that enabled them to become a practical commercially viable and  revolutionise logistics

The New York Times has a good article, click here to read

Thus, without ever intending to, Mr. Tantlinger, an engineer who died at 92 on Aug. 27 and who had long worked out of the limelight, helped bring about the vast web of international trade that is a fact of 21st-century life. More than any other innovation, the modern shipping container — by turns venerated and castigated — is now acknowledged to have been the spark that touched off globalization.

Exactly.

 

Tags: ,

Category: Land, Sea and Air

About the Author ()

Think Defence hopes to start sensible conversations about UK defence issues, no agenda or no campaign but there might be one or two posts on containers, bridges and mexeflotes!

Comments (6)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Gareth Jones says:

    Petition for a statue I think…..

  2. Tom says:

    built using miniature cargo containers

  3. Dominicj says:

    tom
    why miniature?
    I demand a colosus spanning the channel!!!

  4. Brian Black says:

    Am I the only one who is slightly curious as to what they buried him in?

  5. DominicJ says:

    BB
    You were, now I do hope it was an ISO box…

  6. Alex says:

    Did he have a 20′ wife and two charming 10′ kids? (Especially as, IIRC, he was responsible for the decision to have arithmetically related sizes – 1x 40′ = 2x 20′ or 4x 10′ or 1x 20′+2x 10′)

Leave a Reply