Gordon A. and Mary Cain Department of Chemical Engineering
Engineering Graduate Gives Back |
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Engineering graduate gives back, offers message of perseverance
The first member of his family to attend college, Joseph A. Kleinpeter has always been a resolute achiever. Victory over a serious illness proved just how unbending his determination to succeed is. Kleinpeter is sharing this spirit with LSU.
He has recently contributed $80,000 to the LSU Foundation to establish an endowed scholarship fund for engineering and science undergraduates. "LSU gave me a wonderful education and learning experience that played a big role in the good fortune I've had in my professional career, so I wanted to give some back to the university," Kleinpeter said. In the late '90s, Kleinpeter was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He said contemplations while recovering from the disease in 1998 were the impetus to establish the scholarship. "An illness like that and six months of chemotherapy make you think about what you might do to help others," he said. Kleinpeter said the idea of helping someone from a similar background as his appealed to him. A native of Roseland, Louisiana, Kleinpeter graduated from Amite High in 1961. Because of modest family finances, Kleinpeter said he depended on several scholarships to fund his education. After three semesters at USL in Lafayette, Kleinpeter transferred to LSU. He said he knew LSU had a strong chemical engineering curriculum that would prepare him to be a competitive professional in his field. Kleinpeter received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from LSU in 1965 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Tulane University. He said he began his career as a research engineer for Conoco in 1968 and was instrumental in efforts to develop synthetic fuels from coal technology in the '70s - work that led to six U.S. patents and more than a dozen technical publications. He moved to DuPont as a research manager in 1982, shortly after DuPont acquired Conoco. He has been involved in information technology leadership at DuPont for the past 18 years and has also held other management positions, including his current position of Director of Telecommunications. In the early '80s, he went through the LSU Executive Program and received what he called a "mini-MBA" over the course of three summers. The commitment to excellence that revealed itself in Kleinpeter's early endeavors remains with him today. The first Joseph A. Kleinpeter Scholarship for Engineering and Science is scheduled to be awarded this fall. Kleinpeter said he would like students from Amite High to be given first priority and that he plans to increase the amount of the scholarship as the endowment grows. Kleinpeter and his wife, Carolyn Furca Kleinpeter, a native of Hammond, have lived in Chadds Ford for the past 18 years. They have three grown children, all of whom have engineering degrees.
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