William Zwecker; Chemical Engineer, Inventor

William R. Zwecker, 90, Austrian-born chemical engineer who invented paper products. Scion of the owners of Altesse Paper in Vienna, Zwecker earned his degrees at Technical University of Vienna and the University of Dresden. After fleeing to the United States in 1938, he created the first American-made cigarette paper at the Ancram Paper Co. in New York, ending imports from Europe. He served as a lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence during World War II, developed improvements in wartime aircraft insulation and created the plastic liner for Army helmets. In the 1950s, Zwecker worked with the Stanford Research Institute in Palo Alto and for five years lived in Los Angeles. As a consultant to Sunkist, he invented the first corrugated box for shipping citrus fruit. On Saturday in Peoria, Ariz., after a stroke.