Émile Gagnan

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Émile Gagnan (born November 1900, died 1979) was a French engineer and co-inventor (together with Jacques-Yves Cousteau) of the demand-valve used for the first Scuba equipment ("Aqua-Lung") in 1943. The demand-valve, or regulator, was designed for regulating gas in gas-generator engines, but was found to be excellent for regulating air-supply under varied pressure conditions.

Gagnan was born in the French province of Burgoyne in November, 1900, and graduated from technical school in the early 1920s. He was employed as an engineer specializing in high-pressure pneumatic design by the large gas-supply firm Air Liquide. The first production ‘Scaphandre Autonome’ - or ‘Aqualung’ was released in France in 1946. A year later, Émile Gagnan and his family emigrated to Montreal, Canada and he transferred to the employ of Canadian Liquid Air Ltd. There he set up a lab and proceeded to engineer, design, and prototype an incredible number of SCUBA and undersea technology ‘firsts’, including the direct ancestors of virtually every type of Scuba regulator in common use today.