George Klein (inventor)

{{Short description|Canadian inventor}}

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| name = George Johann Klein

| honorific_suffix = OC, OBE

| image = George Klein.JPG

| alt = George J. Klein

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1904|08|15}}

| birth_place = Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1992|11|04|1904|08|15}}

| death_place = Ottawa, Ontario

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| education = University of Toronto

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| known_for = Invention of the Canadarm, power wheelchair, microsurgical staple gun, ZEEP nuclear reactor

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| awards = Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame inductee, Order of Canada, Order of the British Empire

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File:Klein_Drive_Chair_1953.jpg

George Johann Klein, {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|MBE}} (August 15, 1904 – November 4, 1992) was a Canadian inventor who is often called the most productive inventor in Canada in the 20th century. Although he struggled as a high school student, he eventually graduated from the University of Toronto in Mechanical Engineering. His inventions include key contributions to the first electric wheelchairs for quadriplegics, a novel microsurgical suturing device, the ZEEP nuclear reactor which was the precursor to the CANDU reactor, the international system for classifying ground-cover snow, aircraft skis, the Weasel all-terrain vehicle, the STEM antenna for the space program, and the Canadarm.

Klein worked for forty years as a mechanical engineer at the National Research Council of Canada laboratories in Ottawa (1929–1969).Bourgeois-Doyle 2004, p. 232.

In 1968, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1995, he was inducted to the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame.[http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/about/hallfame/u_i19_e.cfm The Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame: George J. Klein] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101227132350/http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/about/hallfame/u_i19_e.cfm |date=2010-12-27 }}, Canada Science and Technology Museum.