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Robert C. Switzer (19 May 1914 – 20 August 1997) was an American inventor, businessman and environmentalist. Switzer was co-inventor of the first Blacklight paint along with his brother Joseph Switzer and the inventor of the Magnaglo process for nondestructive flaw-detection in machined parts. The brothers founded the Day-Glo Color Corp. in 1946 to develop and manufacture Luminous paint, pigments and other products.
During the summer of 1933, while working to unload tomatoes from a freight car at a Heinz laboratory in Berkeley, California, Switzer fell and suffered several serious injuries, including a skull fracture and severed optic nerve. Medical doctors told him to stay in a dark room until he recovered his eyesight, a period which lasted several months.
The brothers moved their company to Cleveland, Ohio, to partner with Continental Lithograph, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Pictures, that specialized in movie posters and advertisements. They developed and tested new applications for their fluorescent paints, including lithography, Cosmetics, and fabric dyes.
In 1938, Switzer invented Zyglo and Magnaglo, two nondestructive testing processes that use fluorescent dyes to identify defects in machined parts. The dyes penetrate small defects and are seen when inspecting the parts under black light.
During World War II, the company developed daylight fluorescent pigments, which are highly visible in daylight. Bob produced the first piece of high-visibility clothing by dyeing his wife's wedding dress.
When Day-Glo Color Corp. was sold to Nalco in 1985, Bob and his wife used the proceeds to establish the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation to fund students working on applied environmental problem solving.
In 2009, "The Day-Glo Brothers," a children's book about Bob and Joseph Switzer's invention of fluorescent materials, was published by author Chris Barton and illustrator Tony Persiani.
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