Inventor of “Once in a Lifetime” Lawn Care Tool Passes Away

You've probably never heard of George Ballas, but it's very likely that you've used the lawn care tool he invented.  The Houston entrepreneur who invented the Weed Eater has passed away at the age of 85.

People old enough to remember doing yard work before the Weed Eater came along remember how time consuming and tiring it was.

Then, in the 1970s, this guy in Houston came up with a new way to trim grass around trees and in corners of the yard the lawn mower couldn't reach, and lawn care got a lot easier overnight.

George Ballas Sr. got the idea for the Weed Eater while sitting in a car wash. Watching the spinning bristles clean his car, he wondered if the same principle could be applied to trimming grass and weeds.

Working in his garage at home, Ballas experimented with plastic fishing line attached to a small electric motor inside a coffee can. It didn't take long to come up with the electric trimmer that caught on and made him enormously wealthy in the early 70s.

The Weed Eater was so popular stores couldn't keep them in stock.  It didn't take long for competitors to make and market their own versions of this remarkably simple new tool.  It's so simple it makes one wonder why no one had ever thought of it before Ballas came up with it.

Ballas was a man of many talents who was successful in a variety of fields long before the Weed Eater.  In addition to commercial real estate development, he was a well known dancer and dance instructor who owned Houston's largest dance studio for many years.

His wife was a famous Spanish flamenco dancer, and his son Corky Ballas is a champion ballroom dancer. His grandson Mark Ballas is known for his dancing on Dancing With the Stars.

via Maker of 'once-in-a-lifetime' Weed Eater dies at 85 | Death Notices | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Ballas sold Weed Eater to Emerson Electric, which later merged with Poulan.  Poulan/Weed Eater was later acquired by Electrolux, which spun off the outdoor tools division as Husqvarna AB in 2006.