Last Thursday, but the news was announced on Saturday by Amy Calhoun, spokesperson for the W. L. Gore & Associates, died at his home in Maryland at the age of 83 years Robert W. “Bob” Gore, chemical engineer, scientist, philanthropist and inventor of the fundamental GORE-TEX outdoor material.
Bob led the family company, founded by his father Bill in 1958, for 40 years.

Born in Salt Lake City in 1937, Bob received a bachelor’s degree cum laude and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware in 1959 and the University of Minnesota in 1963.

Bob’s most important discovery was certainly in October 1969 when, while looking for a way to produce a plumber’s tape for his father, using Teflon (PTFE) produced by DuPont Experimental Station – a company for which his father Bill had worked – he invented a breathable, lightweight, waterproof membrane that has been used for almost 40 years to make technical and outdoor garments, GORE-TEX.

On May 21, 1970 the first patent application for the new material was filed and two separate patents were granted, one for the product itself and the other for the manufacturing processes in 1976.

This type of microporous material has changed and revolutionized forever and drastically, not only all outdoor clothing and fashion in general, but is also considered of fundamental importance in the medical field (in GORE-TEX is made a membrane for the oxygenation of blood and tubes used as vascular grafts), in aeronautics and aerospace and even in music.

An intelligent businessman, a leader, a true pioneer in the study of materials and their use, Bob Gore has been CEO of W. L. Gore & Associates from 1976 to 2000 and president until 2016, giving up after fighting a serious illness for many years.
But the invention for which we know him continues and will continue to accompany us for much longer.