Lionel B. Kavanagh
Standard Tool Company
Inducted 1993
Lionel B. Kavanagh (1889 – 1991) developed prototype and production injection mold tooling in the very early years of the plastics industry. He was instrumental in developing and refining techniques for producing high-quality injection molds that processed new plastic materials into useful consumer products.
Kavanagh was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Still, his family soon moved to the Leominster, Massachusetts area, where he began his career in plastics at age 15 in the “rub room” of the Blodgett Company, where celluloid articles received their final polishing. In 1911, he and his business partner, Robert Stowell, founded the Standard Tool Company, which became one of the world’s largest privately owned mold shops during the 1940s. He was issued one of the first patents for insulated runner molds (a precursor to hot runner molds).
Kavanagh was a director of the New England Section of the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI, now PLASTICS) and a chairman of the Mold Makers Division of the organization. He was also active in the formation of the Plastics Pioneers Association. Kavanagh Hall at St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, New Hampshire, is named in memory of Lionel Kavanagh. Kavanagh also joined the papal order of the Knights of Malta.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastic processing, Plastics management