Oscar Banker
An inventor in automatic transmission and applied mechanics
Oscar Banker, born Asatour Sarafian, was an Armenian American inventor who lived from 1895 to 1979. His work ranged across tools and mechanisms, from vehicle transmissions to medical devices.
Among his documented contributions was an automatic transmission design granted United States patent 2199095 on 30 April 1940. Such systems sought to match the delivery of engine power to driving conditions while reducing the operations a driver needed to perform manually.
Banker also worked on other mechanical solutions, including needleless injection equipment. His work belongs to the wider history of automatic transmission, developed through contributions by many inventors. A central theme of his career was continuous improvement: recognising a problem in an existing device and proposing a new way for it to function.