Leo Baekeland

A Belgian chemist who did it twice. First came Velox, a photographic paper that amateurs could print on under artificial light, which George Eastman bought in 1899 for a sum that made Baekeland independent. He used the freedom to research resins and in 1907 produced Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, licensing and manufacturing it for electrical insulators, telephones and radios. Knowing which problem industry would pay to solve was as important as the chemistry.