Keith Walton Tantlinger (March 22, 1919 – August 27, 2011) was a mechanical engineer and inventor. As Vice President of Engineering at the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation his inventions played a major role in containerization.[1] Working with a Fruehauf customer, Malcom McLean, they spearheaded the container ship revolution in the 1950s, Tantlinger developed much of the early technology that made modern container shipping possible while at Fruehauf. After its initial order of containers from Brown Trailer, Sea-Land switched to containers made by the Strick division of the Fruehauf Trailer Company. Fruehauf had been one of the dominant players in building truck bodies and trailers for a long time, and, as already described, had previously innovated in the design and construction of the early commercial semi-trailers. President Roy Fruehauf was impressed with the idea of containerization, so in addition to manufacturing containers for Sea-Land his company agreed to make the trailer chassis that were needed, and also to provide financing to Sea-Land for the purchase of these containers and chassis.
In 1958 Tantlinger left Sea-Land and became chief engineer at Fruehauf, where he continued to work with containers. More importantly, over the years he played a key role in the process of container standardization, working extensively on a committee of the American Standards Association (ASA) and later being critically involved with the ISO's efforts.[2] His designs included the corner casting and Twistlock systems found on every intermodal container, the spreader bar for automatic securing of containers lifted on and off ships, and the ship-shore container transfer apparatus for the first cellular container ship.[3] In the course of his professional career, Tantlinger was granted 79 United States patents, all related to transportation equipment. Many of his patents related to commercial highway freight trailers and transit buses.
He married Marjorie Cunningham. They had a daughter, Susan Tantlinger, and they later divorced.[3]
In the 1950s, Tantlinger persuaded McLean that shipping containers should be built so they could be separated from a chassis, with strong corner posts and built so they could be stacked on top of each other.
During his career he also worked as chief engineer and vice president of engineering at Brown Trailers in Spokane; vice president of engineering and manufacturing at Fruehauf Corporation in Detroit; and senior vice president, ground transportation systems at Rohr Industries in Chula Vista, California.
On September 10, 1981, he married Wanda Mae Gunnell Delinger in Las Vegas, Nevada.[3]
↑Leonhardt, David. "Lives they lived, Keith W. Tantlinger, b. 1919". New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 December 2011. Retrieved 27 December 2011. Tantlinger developed a lock that connected to the corners of containers and that crane operators could mechanically open and close from their seats. The lock, which led to the adoption of uniformly sized containers over the next 15 years, caused a revolution in shipping.
↑The Shipping Container and the Globalization of American Infrastructure, by Matthew W. Heins
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