Wendell, December 10: George J. Laurer, whose invention of the Universal Product Code at IBM transformed retail and other industries around the world, passed away at 94. Laurer was an electrical engineer with IBM in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park in the early 1970s when he spearheaded the development of the UPC, or bar code.
Laurer was born 1925 in New York City and survived polio as a teenager. During World War II he served in the Army and later graduated from the University of Maryland in 1951. Laurer said in a 2010 interview that grocery stores in the 1970s were dealing with soaring costs and the labor-intensive requirements of putting price tags on all of their products. The bar code led to fewer pricing errors and allowed retailers to keep better account of their inventory.
The first transaction using the bar code was done in 1974, at a Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio, with a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum being scanned, according to IBM. That pack of gum is now at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.