Dr Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone in April 1973 Cooper grew up in Chicago and earned a degree in electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After four years in the navy serving on destroyers and a submarine, he worked for a year at a telecommunications company(1)Cooper was hired by the Motorola Company in 1954. It was during this employment that he developed the first portable hand held police radio for the Chicago Police Department in 1967. It was after he was promoted to division manager and was assigned a team, that he developed the first hand held phone.(4)Dr.Cooper is the inventor named on US patent 3906166 "Radio telephone system" filed on October 17, 1973(5)