Leland Gas Technologies of South Plainfield, New Jersey (US) has been in the business of one-way gas cartridges since 1965. The founders of the company worked for the Walter Kidde Mfg. Company in Bloomfield, New Jersey after WWII and long into the early 1960s.
By the time the Korean War had ended, so did the military contracts for CO2-filled cartridges used for life jackets, and the Kidde Management shut the plant down without notice to its employees.
Leland founders George Stanford and Carl Sollmann, marketing wiz and engineer, respectively, had been shut out of their Kidde offices as the factory property was locked down. They needed their personal effects and the engineering drawings for the pressure vessels. Renting a helicopter to land on the roof of your former employer to recover your belongings was not for the faint of heart. As the onsite security guard was enjoying his 7am coffee, he was alerted to the unmistakable sound of the helicopter as it approached the roof of the factory offices.
Back then, $100 went a long way and Stanford and Sollmann were heading back to the airport with both their belongings and the vision to bring packaged gas to the world in a bigger and better way. And so, the Leland story really begins.
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