This short interview with Mac Pruitt is concerned with the Council for Chemical Research and starts with an account of the foundation meeting at Midland and its origins in Pruitt's fear that U.S. chemical technology was endangered by poor cooperation between university and industry. During the course of the interview, Pruitt describes the working of the task force he set up which eventually led to the formal establishment of the Council. The relations with the American Chemical Society are briefly reviewed, the membership and the staffing of the Council are outlined, and the meaning of the logo is explained. The conversation ends with Pruitt's assessment of the success of the Council for Chemical Research over the first decade of its existence.
Hamilton County Public School, Texas
1936 - 1941
Teacher
Clyde Independent Schools, Texas
1941 - 1942
Teacher
Dow Chemical Company
1942 - 1943
Control Chemist, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1943 - 1944
Research Chemist, Gas Laboratory, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1944 - 1946
Research Chemist, Organic Laboratory, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1946 - 1948
Project Leader, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1948 - 1951
Group Leader, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1951 - 1954
Laboratory Group Leader, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1954 - 1962
Director, Organic Products Development Laboratory, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1962 - 1967
Director of Product Research, Texas Division
Dow Chemical Company
1967 - 1971
Director of Research and Development, Texas Division
Dow Chemical USA
1971 - 1978
Director of Research & Development
Dow Chemical Company
1975 - 1980
Vice-President
Dow Chemical Company
1978 - 1980
Corporate Director of Research and Development
Council for Chemical Research
1980 - 1982
Chairman
Council for Chemical Research
1982
Honorary Chairman
James J. Bohning
James J. Bohning is professor emeritus of chemistry at Wilkes University, where he was a faculty member from 1959 to 1990. He served there as chemistry department chair from 1970 to 1986 and environmental science department chair from 1987 to 1990. Bohning was chair of the American Chemical Society’s Division of the History of Chemistry in 1986; he received the division’s Outstanding Paper Award in 1989 and has presented more than forty papers at national meetings of the society. Bohning was on the advisory committee of the society’s National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program from its inception in 1992 through 2001 and is currently a consultant to the committee. He developed the oral history program of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and he was the foundation’s director of oral history from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to 1998, Bohning was a science writer for the News Service group of the American Chemical Society. He is currently a visiting research scientist and CESAR Fellow at Lehigh University. In May 2005, he received the Joseph Priestley Service Award from the Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society.