Carl G. Sontheimer (1914 – 23 March 1998) was an American inventor and engineer best known for creating the original

Cuisinart Cuisinart ( ) is an American home appliance brand owned by Conair Corporation. The company was started in 1971 by Carl Sontheimer to bring an electric food processor to the U.S. market. The "Food Processor" was the first model, introduced at a f ...

food processor A food processor is a kitchen appliance used to facilitate repetitive tasks in the preparation of food. Today, the term almost always refers to an electric-motor-driven appliance, although there are some manual devices also referred to as "food ...

. Sontheimer was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

but raised in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. He returned to the U.S. to attend the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT), where he received an engineering degree. Before developing the food processor in the early 1970s, he had a career that included work at

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

and Maguire Industries. He invented a number of other devices, including a microwave-based direction finder used during NASA's moon program. He founded and sold two electronics companies, one became Trak Electronics. Sontheimer sold his stake in Trak and started Anzac Electronics to develop and manufacture microwave systems. He sold Anzac by 1966, but continued as a consultant for three years. His food processor was based on a commercial one produced by a major French restaurant supplier, the Robot-Coupe invented by Pierre Verdon. Sontheimer refined and improved it to create the Cusinart which debuted in 1973. He and his wife sold the

company to an investment group in 1987 for $42 million. The company is now owned by Conair. Sontheimer died on 26 March 1998 in a hospital near his home in

Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich (, ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast (Conne ...

References

Biography
from an MIT "inventor of the week" site 1914 births 1998 deaths Engineers from New York City 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors American expatriates in France {{US-inventor-stub