One of the industry’s legendary inventors, George Ballas, died June 25 at age 85. Ballas introduced the concept for the handheld line trimmer when he invented the Weed Eater in 1971. The new concept revolutionized lawn care, and by 1976 his company had more than $40 million in sales. Ballas later said the Weed Eater idea came to him one day while at a car wash, watching the big rotating brushes. He initially rigged a popcorn can with wires running through it and mounted the contraption to the business end of a lawn edger before engineering and manufacturing the industry’s first line trimmers under the brand names “Weedie” and “Clippie” before settling on Weed Eater and building a power equipment powerhouse.

Ballas led a wide and varied life: The son of Greek immigrants, he worked in his parents’ restaurant in north Louisiana, served in the U.S. Air Force in World War II and Korea, and went into the dance business, managing several Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire studios in the early ’60s. He ultimately opened and operated the largest single dance studio in the world at the time in Houston, Tex., a 43,000 sq. ft. operation complete with big bands and a bar. Ballas was also a developer who built hotels and marketed a portable phone years before its time, although it never caught on, and he taught a class on entrepreneurship at Rice University in Houston.

In 1977, Ballas sold Weed Eater Inc. to Emerson Electric, which later merged with Poulan, and the product became part of the Poulan line. Weed Eater ended up with the Electrolux Group when Electrolux purchased Poulan and Poulan PRO in 1986, and today it is part of the Husqvarna product lineup, after Electrolux spun off its lawn and garden companies in 2006.