Inventor. He is best remembered for his creation of the modern ice resurfacer, known as the Zamboni machine. Born Frank Joseph Zamboni, Jr., his parents were Italian immigrants. When he was a young boy, his parents moved to Lava Hot Springs near Pocatello, Idaho, where they purchased a farm. In 1920 he moved with his parents to the harbor district of Los Angeles, California where his older brother George was operating an auto repair shop. After attending a trade school in Chicago, Illinois he and his younger brother Lawrence opened an electrical supply business in 1922 in Los Angeles. In 1927 he and Lawrence added an ice-making plant and entered the block ice business until 1939. Upon seeing little future in that business with the advent of electrically operated refrigeration units, they decided to use their excess refrigeration equipment to open a nearby ice rink in 1940. After devising a way to eliminate rippling in the ice caused by the pipes that were laid down to keep the rink frozen, he invented a machine in 1949 that transformed the job of resurfacing an ice rink from a five-man, 90-minute task to a one-man, 15-minute job. The machine would shave the ice off the surface, collect the shavings, wash the ice, and spread a thin coat of fresh water onto the surface. He then established the Frank J. Zamboni and Company to build and sell the machines. Demand for the machine proved great enough that his company added a second plant in Brantford, Ontario and a branch office in Switzerland. In the 1970s he invented machines to remove water from outdoor artificial turf surfaces, remove paint stripes from the same surfaces, and roll up and lay down artificial turf in domed stadiums. In 1983 he created his final invention, an automatic edger to remove ice buildup from the edges of rinks. He died at the age of 87. Among his honors include the induction into the Ice Skating Institute's Hall of Fame in 1965, the North East Ice Skating Managers Association Hall of Fame in 1988, the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000, the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2006, the National Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2007, the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009, and the United States Speed Skating Hall of Fame in 2013. In 1988 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Clarkson University at Potsdam, New York.
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And, according to Smithsonian Magazine article in Nov. 2023, Frank Zamboni "didn't even like to skate."