Dick Drew’s development of the first masking tape is an example of his extraordinary gift for solving customer problems. In the early 1920s, 3M manufactured and sold abrasives.
One afternoon, Drew wanted to test a new batch of sandpaper, so he visited an auto body shop in St. Paul, Minn. When he entered the shop, he heard a group of workers cursing vehemently. He asked about the problem. Two-tone cars were popular then, but the effect required workers to mask certain parts of the auto body using a combination of heavy adhesive tape and butcher paper. After the paint dried, workers removed the tape – and often peeled away part of the new paint. Their labor was undone, and costs mounted for the customer.
Drew watched as the workers began to touch up the flawed paint. He could have seen this as an opportunity to sell more sandpaper, but realized that what the customer really needed was a tape with less aggressive adhesive. Drew also realized that 3M already had several of the elements of tape making at its disposal. Sandpaper required a backing, an adhesive and an abrasive mineral. Hold the mineral and you have an adhesive tape.
Drew took his idea back to the lab. He began a long and frustrating quest for the right combination of materials to create what would become the world’s first tape specifically designed for masking. Drew wrestled with the adhesive and, especially, the backing. After some time, then-President McKnight told Drew to drop the project and get back to work on improving sandpaper.
Drew agreed – for about 24 hours. Then he thought of a new way to handle the backings and went back to the lab. He threw himself into the task with renewed enthusiasm and without concern for McKnight’s direction. In the middle of an experiment, a door opened and McKnight entered the lab. He looked at Drew, noted the experiment and continued walking.
Drew finally hit on the right combination of materials, and he asked McKnight to approve funding for a paper making machine needed to manufacture the new tape. McKnight considered the proposal, but demurred. Rather than give up, Drew simply applied his talent for innovation. In his capacity as a researcher, he had authority to approve purchases of up to $100; he began writing a flurry of $99 purchase orders and later confessed his strategy to McKnight while he was showing him the new machine.
