Whiteboard
Albert Stallion invented whiteboards while working at Alliance in the 1960s. Alliance (now known as PolyVision) produced enameled steel for architectural cladding, but Stallion noted it could also potentially be used as a writing surface. Stallion later left Alliance to form his own whiteboard production company, MagiBoards.
Particle board
Although the use of two or three layers of wood veneer is ancient, modern 4' x 8' sheets of plywood with 5-11 core layers of veneer were invented in the early 20th century, and began to become common by the Second World War. During the war, phenolic resin was more readily accessible than top grade wood veneer in Germany, and Luftwaffe pilot and inventor Max Himmelheber played a role in making the first sheets of particleboard, which were little more than pourings of floor sweepings, wood chips, and ground up off-cuts and glue. The first commercial piece was produced during World War II at a factory in Bremen, Germany. For its production, waste material was used - such as planer shavings, offcuts or sawdust - hammer-milled into chips and bound together with a phenolic resin. Hammer-milling involves smashing material into smaller and smaller pieces until they can pass through a screen. Most other early particleboard manufacturers used similar processes, though often with slightly different resins.