Following his graduation from East High School he attended Iowa State College in Ames IA for a mechanical engineering degree in 1934.
After two years he was unable to afford tuition and went back to work for the family's business – Star Machine Stop in Des Moines.
During a visit to a Des Moines area food processor he noticed the arduous and treacherous work needed to loosened skin from hams and pork bellies.
After nearly a year of trial and error, he perfected the machine, got it patented, and introduced the Townsend Model 27 Pork Skinner in 1946.
Townsend set out to find a better way, his "Frank-a-Matic", a machine that virtually eliminated waste and made hot dogs at a rate of 36,000 an hour.