John Schneiter
Industrialist, inventor, and longtime friend of the project
John Schneiter saw the world a bit differently than you or I. Take dinner at a restaurant. We look at the table and see plates, silverware, and glassware; John looked at the same table and saw the mechanism that cast the ceramic plate, the silver-plating process behind the fork, and the molecular engineering that kept the glass from being brittle. If you feared this was going to be a long dinner, you were in for a pleasant surprise — because John's most extraordinary skill was connecting with people. Always enthusiastic and encouraging, he embraced life with an uncommon gusto and joy that was contagious. By the time he had finished explaining how something worked, he had a way of making you feel like you had invented it yourself.
An accomplished industrialist, John quietly reshaped consumer products the rest of us take for granted. In 1975 he developed the film, plastic liners, and spigot connector used inside boxed wines — first introduced in Australia and, two years later, in the United States. In 1976 he developed the bulk plastic catsup package first used by Ray Kroc in the McDonald's stores and later adopted across the fast-food industry. And in 1977 he developed the metalized plastic film and the machines to fabricate the first mylar balloons. He remained an active member of his local church in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and a steady developer of new products for the plastics industry to the end.
An Air Force veteran of World War II, John loved flying, reading, and above all his family. He passed away in 2024, and is dearly missed.