Nathaniel Wyeth (inventor)

Wyeth was the first person ever named senior engineering fellow at DuPont, the company's highest technical position. Nathaniel invented or co-invented twenty-five products. In 1990, Wyeth was award DuPont's Lavoisier Award for Technical Achievement.

Wyeth received the 1981 Society of Plastics Engineers international award for outstanding achievement, and was inducted into the Society of the Plastics Industry Hall of Fame in 1986. He was a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

In 1967, he pondered whether soda could be stored in plastic bottles. After experimenting with a plastic detergent bottle that proved incapable of withstanding the forces of pressurized liquids, he realized that a much stronger material would be required. He initially experimented with polypropylene, but ultimately settled on polyethylene terephthalate as the material and received the patent in 1973.

Wyeth and Caroline had six sons: Newell, Howard, N. Convers III, Andrew, John, and David, and one daughter, Melinda, who died very young. Newell, their oldest, died tragically in 1945 alongside his famous grandfather, N.C. Wyeth (Wyeth's father), when their car stalled on a railroad crossing near their home and they were struck by a milk train.

He married Caroline Pyle in 1937. Local residents were inclined to think Caroline and Wyeth's father, N. C. Wyeth, carried on a relationship, though biographer David Michaelis found little evidence to suggest it. Caroline died in 1973 and in 1984 Wyeth married Jean Grady.

Nathaniel Wyeth joined DuPont in 1936 as a field engineer. By 1963 he was the company's first engineering fellow and when he retired in 1976, was DuPont's first senior engineering fellow, the company's highest technical position.

Nathaniel C. Wyeth (October 24, 1911 – July 4, 1990) was an American mechanical engineer and inventor. He is best known for creating a variant of polyethylene terephthalate that could withstand the pressure of carbonated liquids. Made of recyclable PET plastic, lighter than glass and virtually unbreakable, Wyeth's invention is used widely today for both carbonated and non-carbonated drinks.