Born to Swiss immigrant parents in the Bronx, New York, Abplanalp graduated from Fordham Preparatory School in 1939 (he would rescue the school from financial distress many years later in 1978) and studied mechanical engineering at Villanova University.
He ran his own small machine shop prior to entering the United States Army in 1943. After serving in World World War II he worked in his machine shop where he invented a practical aerosol valve that could be mass-produced inexpensively. He began the Precision Valve Corporation in 1949, and, by 1950, 15,000,000 valves had been produced, marking the beginning of his business empire.
At the time of Abplanalp"s death in Bronxville, New York from lung cancer on August 30, 2003, age 81, he held more than 300 aerosol-related patents.
He is interred at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New New York
