Rudy Krolopp

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Rudy Krolopp (* 1930 in Chicago ) is an American industrial designer. He was director of the industrial design department at Motorola and, together with Martin Cooper, designed the first prototype of a mobile phone in 1973 , which Motorola launched in 1983 as the world's first mobile phone.

Live and act

Rudy Krolopp attended college in Lake Forest , studied Advanced Business and graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Fine & Applied Arts . He began his career in 1956 as a junior designer in the consumer goods division at Motorola, then became manager of industrial design and later became chief designer at Motorola.

At the beginning of January 1973, Motorola began developing the world's first commercial cell phone, for which a patent was filed on October 17, 1973. Martin Cooper, who filed the patent, is still considered the father of the cell phone to this day. However, the inventor is Cooper's friend, chief designer Rudy Krolopp, who played a key role in the development of the DynaTAC 8000X launched by Motorola in 1983 . His first cell phone call was in an American restaurant in 1983, when he called the manager of the restaurant and asked him to bring him a glass of water.

The lighter and smaller models - MicroTAC 950 (introduced in 1989) and StarTAC from 1996, the first portable television and the first Motorola car phone - were also designed by Krolopp. A total of seven Krolopp patents are available to the US Patent Office.

In 1997, Krolopp retired after 42 years with Motorola. He has seven children and 15 grandchildren (as of 2003) and works on model airplanes in his free time.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on Rudy Krolopp's résumé, Zoominfo.com, accessed on February 20, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b "I did it" report at Focus from June 26, 2003.
  3. ↑ Cooper et al .: U.S. Patent 3,906,166 dated September 16, 1975 in Google Patents, accessed February 20, 2015
  4. ↑ Motorola Makes History , accessed February 20, 2015
  5. ↑ a b c Helge Denker: 20 years of mobile phone: "Cut off the cable". Article in Spiegel, June 13, 2003; accessed on February 20, 2015.
  6. ^ Caroll M. Gantz: Design Chronicles: Significant Mass-produced Designs of the 20th Century . Schiffer Publications, Ltd. August 2005.
  7. ↑ Information page of the Patent Office on patents by Rudy Krolopp , Patentbuddy.com, accessed on February 20, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Krolopp, Rudy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American industrial designer
DATE OF BIRTH 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago