An amateur radio operator (“ham”) since age 16, Gross was very interested in radio communications. While still in high school in Cleveland, Ohio, he invented the “walkie-talkie”, or portable two-way radio. Dick Tracy cartoonist Chester Gould was impressed enough to ask permission to adapt the device to his comic — and the detective’s “two-way wrist radio” was born.
During World War II, Gross worked with U.S. Office of Strategic Services and helped invent a portable two-way radio for ground troops to communicate with aircraft. After the war, he turned to the medical field, helping bring doctors to emergencies — by inventing the pager. “If you have a cordless telephone or a cellular telephone or a walkie talkie or beeper, you’ve got one of my patents,” Gross once said. But he was a man before his time: his key patents expired in 1971, so he never saw great riches from today’s widespread uses of his inventions. Gross died December 21 at age 82.