AeroPress inventor and engineer Alan Adler has been honing his inventing skills since he was 13 years old. That was when he came up with an idea for a useful tool: an electronic device for measuring minute displacements in structures. In Alan's early career he worked as an electrical engineer designing systems for high tech companies. He was fascinated by sailboats and taught himself aerodynamics so that he could learn to design them. In 2003, Alan embarked on a new adventure - a dramatic departure from the company’s progress until that point. Dismayed by his own bad experiences with home coffee makers, and inspired by a conversation about how difficult it was to make a single cup of good coffee. Two years and over 30 prototypes later he finalised the design and introduced the AeroPress coffee maker at Coffee Fest Seattle in November 2005.