Fred Moffatt (1912-2006) graduated from Central Technical School in Toronto and took night classes at the Ontario College of Art. He worked for Southern Press in 1929 and Rapid Grip from 1929 to 1932. That same year, he founded a design firm, F.E. Moffatt Ltd. For forty years, his main client was Canadian General Electric (CGE).

His first CGE product was a floor polisher.  He also designed an award winning space heater. Since then, Moffatt has designed forty years’ worth of electric kettles for Canadian General Electric, as well as electric floor polishers, heaters and lawn mowers. The KE 860 reflects his expertise in transitioning from illustration and graphic design to industrial design. In the 1930s, Fred Moffatt became the CGE's first freelance industrial design consultant, a role he continued for the next five decades.