Duane D. Pearsall

Duane Darwin Pearsall, known as Dewey (1922 to 2010), was an American businessman and engineer best known for developing and marketing the first battery-powered home smoke detector in 1965. Born in Pontiac, Michigan, he attended the General Motors Institute, served in the Naval Air Corps in World War II and graduated from the University of Denver in 1947. After seven years as a heating and air conditioning sales engineer at Honeywell he founded the Pearsall Company in 1955 and the Statitrol Corporation in 1963, where an engineer's accidental test of an ion generator showed that ionization technology could detect smoke. His SmokeGard 700 received a design patent in 1973 and went into mass production in 1975, and his later work with the National Fire Protection Association helped lead building codes to require smoke detectors in new construction. He also advocated for small business, co-founded Columbine Venture Funds, and was honored by Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.