Career
Sherman was a 1952 alumnus of Gustavus Adolphus College located in St. Peter, Minnesota.
She was the co-inventor along with Samuel Smith of Scotchgard while an employee of the 3M corporation in 1952. Sherman remained at 3M for several years improving on Scotchgard and developed other uses for the product. Scotchgard would become, arguably, the most famous and widely used stain repellent and soil removal product in North America.
An accidental spill of a fluorochemical rubber on an assistant’s tennis shoe was the beginning to the invention of the product. After exhaustive attempts to remove the spill failed, Sherman moved her intention from removing the spill to using the spill as a protectant from spills. Sherman and Smith received US 3574791 on April 13, 1971, for "invention of block and graft copolymers containing water-solvatable polar groups and fluoroaliphatic groups." Sherman holds 13 patents with Smith in flurochemical polymers and polymerization processes.
Due to the success of the product Sherman was featured on Minnesota Public Radio in a call-in segment on WCCO radio's Boone and Erickson show to discuss Scotchgard in 1969. Sherman was recruited to appeal to the housewives in the radio audience.
During development of the Scotchgard product in the 1950s, Sherman was required to wait for performance results outside of the textile mill during testing due to a rule at that time that women were not allowed in the mill. At that time in American history, there were very few female chemists; Sherman was a rarity in the corporate environment. She has been a member of the American Chemical Society for over 50 years.
In October 2002, along with notable speakers such as Steve Wozniak (the inventor of the Apple computer), Sherman spoke at the United States Patent and Trademark Offices 200 birthday celebration. She was one of 37 inventors who spoke on the process of invention. She said
| “ | you can encourage and teach young people to observe, to ask questions when unexpected things happen. You can teach yourself not to ignore the unanticipated. Just think of all the great inventions that have come through serendipity, such as Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, and just noticing something no one conceived of before. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Patsy O'Connell Sherman
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)