Joseph Frederick Engelberger (July 26, 1925 – December 1, 2015) was an American physicist, engineer and entrepreneur. Licensing the original patent awarded to inventor George Devol, Engelberger developed the first industrial robot in the United States, the Unimate, in the 1950s. Later, he worked as entrepreneur and vocal advocate of robotic technology beyond the manufacturing plant in a variety of fields, including service industries, health care, and space exploration. Biography Early life and education Joseph Frederick Engelberger was born on July 26, 1925, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Connecticut during the Great Depression, but later returned to New York City for his college education. Engelberger received his B.S. in physics in 1946, and M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1949 from Columbia University. He worked as an engineer with Manning, Maxwell and Moore, where he met inventor George Devol at a Westport cocktail party in 1956, two years after Devol had designed and patented a rudimentary industrial robotic arm. However, Manning, Maxwell and Moore was sold and Engelberger's division was closed that year. Unimation Finding himself jobless but with a business partner and an idea, Engelberger co-founded Unimation with Devol, creating the world's first robotics company. In 1957, he also founded Consolidated Controls Corporation. As president of Unimation, Engelberger collaborated with Devol to engineer and produce an industrial robot under the brand name Unimate. The first Unimate robotic arm was installed at a General Motors Plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, in 1961. The introduction of robotics to the manufacturing process effectively transformed the automotive industry, with Chrysler and the Ford Motor Company soon following General Motors' lead and installing Unimates in their manufacturing facilities. The rapid adoption of the technology also provided Unimation with a working business model: after selling the first Unimate at a $35,000 loss, as demand increased, the company was able to begin building the robotic arms for significantly less and thus began to turn a substantial profit. Over the next two decades, the Japanese took the lead by investing heavily in robots to replace people performing certain tasks. In Japan, Engelberger was widely hailed as a key player in the postwar ascendancy of Japanese manufacturing quality and efficiency. In 1966, Engelberger and a Unimate robot appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In the segment, the robot poured a beer, sank a golf putt, and directed the band. An early proponent of