"I am basically an inventor," says Daniel D. Friel, Sr., "I have tried to apply entrepreneurial and inventing talents to everything I have done. And I have always wanted whatever I create to be the very best of its kind."

Friel founded the EdgeCraft Corporation in 1984. How he built an enterprise, that in only a few short years has become the world leader in cutting edge technology, is a true American success story.

As he neared the end of his 40-year career with the DuPont Company, Friel inventoried his skills. Born in 1920, he had worked as a scientist, development engineer and manager of many diverse businesses. He had done research in a variety of areas including physics, chemistry, optics, electronics and even gravity. He garnered numerous patents for development of sophisticated instruments.

"I decided I wasn't going to play golf," Friel says, with a laugh, of his retirement. Instead, he began constructing a list of possible second careers and evaluating them in relation to his skills, limitations, required energy and time, potential for success and compatibility with his family interests.

Always enthralled by knife sharpening, Friel included in his list the invention of a truly effective electric knife sharpener that would work on a wide variety of knives, particularly, fine quality gourmet knives. He rescued a 20-year-old set of Gerber knives from a closet They were a present from his wife June, and to his great frustration, he had never been able to put a satisfactory edge on them.

With fierce determination and a personal deadline of three years to show himself adequate progress on the project, Friel set to work in a basement laboratory and then sought the assistance of other professionals. "They were the nucleus of the EdgeCraft team," recalls Friel. He created thirteen prototypes before he came up with one that satisfied him. Soon after its introduction, the Chef'sChoice® Diamond Hone® Sharpener earned the acclaim of food experts and chefs worldwide, including Pierre Franey, Jacques Pépin and the late Craig Claiborne.

Friel compares the day he left DuPont to follow his second career to the day he walked away from Johns Hopkins University after earning a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering."Unlike the day I left Johns Hopkins, when I left DuPont I could proceed with the knowledge and confidence gained from some 40 years of hands-on experience," Friel recalls. "I saw a need and I had the confidence that I could deliver."

Company History (Continued)
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