Profile America — Sunday, July 18th. On these blistering hot summer days when we walk from the heat into a cool office, business, or home, we can thank a man many of us never heard of — Willis Carrier. Known as the “father of air conditioning,” Carrier patented what he called an “apparatus for treating air” in 1906. His idea has fundamentally changed the way most Americans live, work and play. A good example is the surging population growth in some of the nation’s warmest climates. Air conditioning came into …