Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) was an electrical engineer, inventor, and holder of 140 patents. Upon graduation from Ohio State University in 1904, he went to work for National Cash Register. While making improvements to cash registers and other business machines, he worked on improving ignition for cars in his spare time. Henry Leland put Kettering's improvements into the 1910 Cadillac and hired Kettering to develop an electric starter, which was ready for the 1912 Cadillac, the first car to have one. Kettering and his colleague Edward Deeds formed the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, later called Delco, to produce the improved ignition and then the electric starter. They sold Delco to United Motors in 1916. Alfred Sloan at GM combined United Motors with GM and in 1920 hired Kettering to run General Motors Research in a new center near Dayton, Ohio. He worked for GM until 1947. In addition to the electric self-starter, Kettering discovered fast-drying paint that reduced the number of hours required to finish an automobile, and he set his researcher Thomas Midgley to study the cause of engine knock. They developed the additive tetraethyl lead with bromine, which resulted in a high-octane gas, allowing for more efficient, high-compression engines, and lower fuel costs.