Robert Abplanalp

Robert H. Abplanalp, a friend and confidant of President Richard M. Nixon and an inventor who turned a better aerosol valve into an international business and a personal fortune, died in September 2003 at his house in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 81. Mr. Abplanalp provided emotional and financial support to Nixon during his tumultuous years in and out of power. In 1969, Mr. Abplanalp lent Nixon the money to buy the 29-acre property at San Clemente, Calif., that became the western White House. Mr. Abplanalp had started the Precision Valve Corporation, with two partners in 1949 to manufacture a new type of aerosol valve that he invented in a machine shop in the Bronx and for which he had a patent. Precision Valve revolutionized the industry and vastly reduced production costs of aerosol products. He bought out his partners, John Baessler and Fred Lodes and was chairman and CEO at his death. He married Josephine Sloboda in 1956 .Also surviving are his son, John, a daughter, Marie Holcombe of Bronxville; a sister, Clara Radcliffe; and four grandchildren.