Carrier, Willis

Willis Carrier, in full Willis Haviland Carrier, (born November 26, 1876, Angola, New York, U.S.—died October 7, 1950, New York City), American inventor and industrialist who formulated the basic theories of air conditioning. In 1902, while an engineer with the Buffalo Forge Company, Carrier designed the first system to control temperature and humidity. His “Rational Psychrometric Formulae,” introduced in a 1911 engineering paper, initiated scientific air-conditioning design. He was a founder (1915) of the Carrier Corporation, manufacturer of air-conditioning equipment.