James Alex Trane (April 29, 1857 – January 24, 1936) was a Norwegian-American inventor and industrialist.
[2] He was an immigrant to the United States who settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1864, finding work as a steamfitter and plumber.
[5] By 1916, the Tranes were no longer in the plumbing business, but rather were focusing their attention on manufacturing heating products.
[6] In 1925, Reuben Trane invented a new type of heat transfer device known as the convector radiator.
It consisted of a new style of heat exchanger in a sheet metal cabinet—a highly efficient, lightweight replacement for the bulky, slow-responding castiron radiator.