Arthur Fry

Who is Arthur Fry?

Arthur Fry is a retired American inventor and scientist. He is credited as the co-creator of the Post-it note, an item of office stationery manufactured by 3M. As of 2006, Post-it note products are sold in more than 100 countries.

Fry was born in Minnesota and subsequently lived in Iowa and Kansas City. He received his early education in a one-room rural schoolhouse. During his childhood, he reputedly made his first foray into engineering by building toboggans from scrap lumber. He went on from those early efforts to study chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota. He has 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

In 1953, while still enrolled in undergraduate school, Fry took a job at 3M as a new product development researcher. He worked in new product development throughout his career at 3M until his retirement in the early 1990s.

The item for which he is best known was born in 1974. That year, Fry attended a seminar given by another 3M scientist, Spencer Silver, on a unique adhesive Silver had developed in 1968. Silver's innovation had an unusual molecular structure, yielding an adhesive strong enough to cling to objects but weak enough to allow for a temporary bond. At the time, Silver was still searching for a marketable use for his invention.