ART FRY
Retired Corporate Scientist
3M
Saint Paul, MN

 Art Fry didn’t invent the special adhesive that didn’t stick very well, and he didn’t invent the paper.  But he did find a way to put them together so they wouldn’t come apart. What resulted was the newest thing to happen to notes in years. His Post-it® Notes – marketed around the world by 3M under the Post-it® brand name – fasten themselves just about anywhere, and lift off without a sign that they’ve ever been there.

Now semi-retired, Art holds 3M’s top technical title, corporate scientist.  He has a unique perspective born of almost 40 years of experience developing new products for the 3M Company.  A Midwesterner with both rural and urban roots, Art began working for 3M part-time in 1953, while still a University of Minnesota Chemical Engineering student.  His career was devoted almost entirely to new product development -- using the stream of leading-edge materials and technologies generated by 3M research, to create products to solve real customer problems, and to help build businesses around them.

Fry credits a youth full of change with giving him the taste for variety and some of the background useful for a career in product development.  Born in Minnesota, he attended a one-room school in a small Iowa town from kindergarten through the fifth grade.  His family then moved to Kansas City when his father changed careers.  As a youngster who grew up in the pre-television era, Fry often invented his own entertainment.  A pile of boards could be made into a bobsled in the winter, or a shack in the summer.

Art has made several contributions to 3M’s new product world, but the most significant was the invention of the Post-it® Note.  The product had its root as a solution looking for a problem.  A colleague, Dr. Spence Silver, had discovered a unique, high quality adhesive composed of tiny particles that would adhere instantly, but less tightly than other adhesives.  The adhesive was strong enough to hold papers together, but weak enough to not tear paper fibers when it was removed.  Art’s initial business application for the adhesive was a bookmark for his music in the church choir.  This proved to be just the beginning of a long effort by Art and teams of colleagues to bring Post-it® Notes, tapes, and labels to a world of users.

The invention of the Post-it® Note -- introduced in the United States in 1980 and in Europe in 1981 -- earned Art a number of 3M internal honors.  Art received the highest form of peer recognition by being elected to 3M's Carlton Society.  He was also on the team for two Golden Step Awards and was elected to 3M's Circle of Technical Excellence.  Post-it® Notes and Microreplication Technologies were cited when 3M received the National Medal of Technology in 1996.  Art has also received the Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota, the Premio Smau Industrial Design Award from the Italian Office Design Association and was recently voted by Esquire Magazine as one of the best 100 people in the world.

Semi-retired, Art still keeps his hand in technology, networking and mentoring.  He’s become a spokesman both inside and outside of 3M on innovation and the company’s unique culture.  He is married and has three children and five grandchildren. Art lives in a St. Paul suburb and enjoys gardening, golf, tennis, skiing, cooking, reading, learning, and inventing.