George Raymond
George Raymond was an American engineer and manufacturer who founded what became the Raymond Corporation and in 1939 patented, with William House, the double-faced wooden pallet and a hand pallet truck.
What they did and why it matters
Raymond's double-faced pallet and matching lift truck helped create the unit load, the handling method behind nearly every warehouse dock and rack today. An efficiency engineer, he bought the Lyon Iron Works foundry in Greene, New York, in 1922. His patents with William House, granted in 1939, covered a pallet with deck boards on top and bottom, so crushable loads could be stacked high, and a truck to lift it. He donated the pallet patent to the industry. In 1951 he and engineer Christian Gibson patented a narrow-aisle truck. Pallet racking, reach trucks, and pallet-based storage pricing all trace to these designs.