This article was in the June 9, 2002 issue of the Syracuse Post Standard.
Neal Carrier
June 09, 2002
CHARLEY HANNAGAN
MANUFACTURING NOTEBOOK
Carrier Corp. kicked off its 100th anniversary salute to air conditioning
with a Web site touting inventor Willis Carrier as "the Father of Cool."
In honoring the man who invented air conditioning, the company has developed
a cool Web site with stories about Carrier and ways for people to honor their
own cool fathers. The address is
www.fatherofcool.com
The site features stories about Carrier by Edna M. Littlehales . Littlehales,
80, is the daughter of Harry Moor , who helped Carrier develop the first
centrifugal compressor, the basis of air conditioning.
Littlehales was 8 when her father died, and when her mother fell on hard
times, Carrier and his wife took her in. The Carriers had no children of
their own.
Littlehales will contribute regularly to the Web site. The site has a place
for people to print out a "certificate of coolness" for their own dads and a
spot to post stories about them.
On July 17, 1902, Carrier designed the first system that provided man-made
control over temperature, humidity, ventilation and indoor air quality as a
solution to problems at a Brooklyn printing plant.
"Despite the immense impact of air conditioning on humankind, Willis Carrier
is still surprisingly unknown," said Carrier President Geraud Darnis . "We
think he should rightfully be viewed by historians and the public as one of
world's greatest inventors. A humble but determined man, he truly changed the
way we work and live."
Carrier's invention also built a major manufacturing campus in DeWitt that
employs 3,200.