Frank Zamboni

Frank Joseph Zamboni Jr. was an American businessman and inventor whose most famous invention is the modern ice resurfacer, and his surname is registered as a trademark for these machines. Born in Eureka, Utah, in 1901 to Italian immigrants, he grew up on a farm in Idaho, worked as a mechanic, and with his brother Lawrence opened an electrical supply business in 1922 and an ice-making plant in 1927. In 1940 the brothers opened the Iceland skating rink in Paramount, California. Resurfacing the ice then took 90 minutes and five employees, and in 1947 Zamboni introduced a machine that let one person do the job. He died in 1988.