On this day: Happy birthday to Charles Kettering, an automotive icon

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Happy birthday to one of the unheralded legends who helped make Michigan the automotive capital of the world, Charles Kettering .

Names like Ford and Dodge are synonymous with the car industry, but Kettering’s inventions arguably made just as big of an impact.

Kettering was born on Aug. 29, 1876, in Ohio and had a mind for science. Even before getting into the auto industry, Kettering was moving industries forward. He was credited with developing the first cash register equipped with an electric motor to open the register’s drawer.

Alongside his business partner, he went on to form Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, better known as DELCO, later as ACDELCO . A big part of DELCO’s success was Kettering’s key-operated electric self-starting ignition system. They were first used in Cadillac vehicles starting in 1912 and soon patented. Within years, the easier and safer electric systems became standard in all automobiles.

United Motors Corporation, soon to be known as General Motors, bought DELCO in 1916. Kettering was installed as vice president and the director of research. In that role, he pushed the technology forward, developing new lighting systems, engine cooling systems and eventually a high-compression engine.

His true passion wasn’t automobiles but rather advancing science and technology. In 1919, he helped found The School of Automobile Trades, which is now known as Kettering University . Decades later, alongside former GM head Alfred Sloan, the two established the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research , still considered “one of the world’s most dynamic programs of cancer research.”

Unfortunately, one of his inventions also poisoned the planet with incalculable consequences. Kettering worked with Thomas Midgely Jr. on tetraethyl lead , a fuel additive that made gas more effective and much cheaper.

TEL was a massive success and became an industry norm. However, TEL proved to be toxic and was widely used for decades. Several countries, including the U.S., started phasing out leaded gasoline in the 1970s and it was banned in most countries by the 2000s.

Lead exposure from gas was likely a factor in tens of millions of deaths worldwide and caused a sharp rise in cognitive development issues and maladies.

Kettering left GM in 1947. When he died in 1958, he owned 186 U.S. patents .

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