Alumni News

• Alumni News
• Alumni Updates
• In Memoriam

If you would like for us to print news of your latest achievements, please sign ChE Alumni Guestbook or send us an e-mail at gradcoor@lsu.edu.

Alumnus Inducted into Hall of Distinction

Joseph "Guy" Thibodaux, Jr. was one of two LSU engineering alumni to be inducted to the College of Engineering Hall of Distinction at the 27th annual awards banquet held on April 6 at the LSU Faculty Club. Thibodaux, who served as chief of the Propulsion and Power Division at NASA Manned Spacecraft Center/Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, is a world renowned expert in all forms of propulsion used in both manned and unmanned spacecraft. He was inducted along with Adam "Ted" Bourgoyne, president of Bourgoyne Enterprises, Inc. — a petroleum engineering graduate.

Thibodaux received his B.S. in chemical engineering in 1942. Upon graduation, he served as an Army officer in North and Central Burma during World War II, building roads, airports, and bridges. Then, in 1946, he began his federal career with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Working at the Aeronautical Memorial Laboratory, Langley Field, Virginia as a propulsion engineer in the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division, his early work consisted of modifying, redesigning, and adapting military rockets to meet performance requirements of the various aerodynamic research programs using free-flying rocket propelled models. Within three years, he was promoted to Head of the Model Propulsion Section.

With the new position came complete responsibility for procurement, design, development, test, and application of all solid and liquid propellant rockets used at Langley Research Center as well as the launch station in Wallops Island, Virginia. In 1954, he designed and operated a small solid propellant manufacturing facility at Langley Research Center where he developed and patented high performance spherical rockets and isotensoid filament wound rocket designs. Derivatives of these were used in various NACA and NASA programs. In 1957, he conceived of and collaborated with colleagues on studies of an all solid propellant rocket vehicle, which would be used to launch satellites. This was later developed as the Scout launch vehicle.

Then in 1958, Thibodaux was selected as part of an elite group of 12 to work out the transition from NACA to NASA. He planned NASA's first programs dealing with rocket propulsion, sold those programs to upper management and Congress, and obtained authorization and funding to conduct them. NACA officially became NASA in September 1958. That same year, the Space Task Group was established to develop the program for the country's first venture into manned space flight. The Director of the Langley Research Center assigned Thibodaux to serve as the consultant to the Director of the Space Task Group, which was the predecessor of the Manned Spacecraft Center for propulsion matters. During this time, Thibodaux was instrumental in modifying the design of the Mercury Launch Escape Motor to overcome a critical instability problem detected during development. In addition, he made major contributions in the design of the rocket propulsion systems for both the Apollo and Gemini spacecraft.

Thibodaux was appointed chief of the Propulsion and Power Division for the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center) in 1964. The systems that were developed under his direction performed flawlessly on Apollo space flight missions and during flights to the Skylab space station.

During his long career with NASA, Thibodaux had interfaces with every NASA Center, aerospace contractor, rocket manufacturer as well as foreign scientists and engineers representing more than a half a dozen countries. Thibodaux stated during his induction speech that he is "blessed to have had the opportunity to participate in man's adventure in landing on the moon and exploring the universe." He has many fond memories from his career with NACA and, later, NASA as well as his time at LSU. It was at LSU that he met one of his life-long friends, Max Faget. Thibodaux and Faget were friends and roommates while at LSU (Faget was studying mechanical engineering) and they kept in touch during the war. It was while job hunting after the war with Faget that they made the trip to Langley where they met with Paul Purser (another LSU engineering graduate), who hired both Thibodaux and Faget.

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Department Benefits from Sizable Donation

The department is deeply appreciative of the generous gift from Earnest "Dare" Campbell and his wife Janie, who donated $75,000 to the LSU Foundation in order to establish a charitable remainder annuity trust dedicated to chemical engineering.

Campbell earned his chemical engineering degree from LSU in 1949 after serving in the Army Air Corps in World War II. He went to work at Dow Chemical Company following graduation and is now retired.

Alumnus Honored by American Chemical Society

In September 2005, Kenneth L. Riley (B.S., 1963; M.S., 1965; Ph.D., 1967) was one of 18 research chemists recognized by the ACS as a "Hero of Chemistry" at the ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C.

The "Hereos of Chemistry" award honors "chemical innovators whose work has led to the welfare and progress of humanity" in a significant way over the past decade. The individuals are nominated by their companies, and the winners are chosen by an ACS panel "in recognition of industrial work that has led to the successful development and commercial sale of a technological product." This year's winners are comprised of multidisciplinary teams from six national companies: Colgate-Palmolive, ExxonMobil and Albemarle, IBM, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, and Novartis.

ExxonMobil and Albemarle Team: (front row, from left) Bruce R. Cook, Steve Mayo, John P. Greeley, and Mark Lapinski; (back row, from left) F. Emil Jacobs, Craig A. McKnight, Kenneth L. Riley, and Jeffrey L. Kaufman.

Riley is one of the eight members of the ExxonMobil and Albemarle team. They developed SCANfining and second-generation SCANfining II. These catalytic processes significantly lower the amount of sulfur in gasoline. When used in conjunction with advanced treatment of vehicle exhaust emissions, the processes aim to improve overall air quality. This is a very attractive prospect since government mandates are requiring even lower vehicle emissions and lower sulfur fuels. SCANfining "uses a novel, highly selective catalyst in a conventional hydrotreating process configuration to achieve increased hydrodesulfurization while minimizing alkene saturation and hydrogen consumption. In this way, SCANfining reduces octane loss by up to 80% versus tradtional hydrotreating processes." (Chemical & Engineering News, September 26, 2005, Vol. 83, No. 39, pp. 48-51)

The department congratulates Riley, as well as all of the other awardees, on receiving this prestigious award. ExxonMobil and Albemarle Team: (front row, from left) Bruce R. Cook, Steve Mayo, John P. Greeley, and Mark Lapinski; (back row, from left) F. Emil Jacobs, Craig A. McKnight, Kenneth L. Riley, and Jeffrey L. Kaufman.

ChE Alum Winner of Business Award

Jim Huff (B.S., 1977) and his wife Nan were the 2005 winners of the 2nd annual "New Venture Business Plan Competition." The Huffs are the founders and owners of Hurricane Chemical. Together they have created a patented process of applying a preservative agent to sugarcane immediately after it is cut, rather than applying the preservatives at the sugar mill as is most commonly done. According to the Huffs, the process of applying the chemical agent in the field decreases the rate of spoilage by more than 50 percent, thereby increasing sugar yield for farmers. The product has been field tested and product demand has already been generated among numerous Louisiana mills.

The "New Venture Business Plan Competition" is sponsored by the E.J. Ourso College of Business and the Business Report. The winners are announced at the annual Top 100 Private Companies Luncheon of the Baton Rouge Business Report's Louisiana Business and Technology Expo.

Two Alumni Receive Recognition for Generosity

Ron Cambre (B.S., 1960), and his wife Gail, were two of 13 individuals honored by the LSU Foundation with a President's Award for Lifetime Support of LSU at the 46th Annual meeting in November 2005.

Robert J. Bujol (B.S., 1943) was honored by the LSU Alumni Association. He was one of 12 individuals to receive the Purple & Gold Award in 2005, which recognizes generous individuals who donate their time, energy, and resources to the Alumni Association to continue its mission to provide support to the University in various ways. Bujol was honored for his major gifts given to the Lod Cook Alumni Center, the LSU War Memorial, the Cook Conference Center and Hotel. In addition, he has endowed a departmental professorship and donates his time as a Lod Cook Alumni Center docent.

Alumnus Bequeaths Funds to College

Malcolm C. Lowe, Jr., a 1942 chemical engineering graduate and former member of the LSU Tiger Band, left a $450,000 bequest to the department. A portion of the bequest ($250,000) will be used to fund one of the major research labs in the new Chemical Engineering Building, which will be named for Malcolm C. and Gene Perdue Lowe, Jr. In addition, a small portion will be used to complete funding of the Malcolm C. and Gene Perdue Lowe, Jr. Professorship in Chemical Engineering.

Mr. Lowe, who passed away in 2005, was always a generous supporter of the department and the university. We are deeply grateful for all that he has done and extend our belated condolences to his family.

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Alumni Updates

If you would like for us to print news of your latest achievements, please sign ChE Alumni Guestbook or send us an e-mail at gradcoor@lsu.edu.

1940s

Charles A. Overstreet (B.S., 1941) retired in 1985 from Stearns-Roger in Denver, Colorado. He currently resides in Casselberry, Florida.

1950s

Horacio Baena (B.S., 1957) is a consulting engineer for the pulp and paper industry and lives in Colombia. He has 6 children-5 girls and 1 boy-living in Spain, Denmark, New York, and Bogota, Colombia. He also has 6 grandchildren-5 girls and 1 boy-residing in Spain (4) and in New York (2). He has the fondest memories from his school days while at LSU and of the wonderful people he met (professors, classmates, etc.). He says the education he received has played a most important role in his life.

Ezra Jasper Westbrook (M.S., 1955) is CEO and consulting principal of Applied Consulting Technologies where he coordinates an associated team of independent consultants to process industries. He is married with one adult child and two grandchildren.

1960s

Gary Guelfo (B.S., 1964) retired from BASF Corporation in August 2002. At present, he is enjoying his hobbies, fishing and target shooting, as well as "Fix It" projects around the house.

Floyd L. Pfeffer (B.S., 1969) is employed as a chemical engineer for Dow Chemical in Port Lavaca, Texas.

1970s

Carl D. Engel (Ph.D., 1971) is vice president and chief technology officer for Qualis Corporation located in Huntsville, Alabama.

Rafael Luis Espinoza (Ph.D., 1975) has served as a project engineer at Induperu in Peru as well as an assistant professor in the Petrochemical Engineering Department at the National University of Engineering, Peru. He has served as senior chief research officer at the CSIR in Pretoria, South Africa (1980-86); section leader for Fischer-Tropsch Process Development at Sasol, Sasolburg, South Africa (1986); a manager for basic catalysis research at Sasol (1989); as a Sasol's research fellow (1999); and, most recently, as director of Fischer-Tropsch R&D at ConocoPhillips in Ponca City, Oklahoma (2000-05). He currently has a consulting practice-Rafael Espinoza Consulting.

Jim Huff (B.S., 1977) co-owner with his wife, Jan, of Hurricane Chemical.

Jean-Paul Merle (B.S., 1969; M.S., 1979) retired in December 2004. His career spanned eight and a half years in the sugar industry in Hawaii and twenty-five and a half years in sugar refining in California.

Rod Mehdi Rezvani (B.S., 1977) lives in Houston and works for Halliburton Drilling Services. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He is married with two kids, one of which is an LSU petroleum engineer.

Phil Westmoreland (M.S., 1974) has been a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst since 1986, working in experimental and computational kinetics. He and his wife has a son at Cornell University and a daughter in the 9th grade.

1980s

Nhuan (John) P. Nghiem (Ph.D., 1982) is a senior scientist in fermentation services for Martek Biosciences Corporation and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering at Clemson University. He still enjoys watching LSU football on television, especially when the Tigers win!

Florine Yvette Williams Vincik (B.S., 1987) is currently employed by Syngenta as a senior staff engineer in process engineering. Her focus is mainly in HCN production and batch herbicide and insecticide manufacture. Her interests are family (a husband and two children, ages 9 and 6), travel, and low-pressure canning of anything (but mostly Louisiana-grown fruits).

1990s

Hertanto Adidharma (Ph.D., 1999) joined the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Wyoming as an assistant professor in the fall of 2005.

Jamal N. Al-Saeedi (M.S., 1995) is an assistant professor in the Chemical Engineering Department of the College of Technological Studies in Kuwait.

Keith L. Ball (B.S., 1999) has been employed by Hercules Inc. since graduation. His current position is operations manager at their Missouri Chemical Works plant in Louisiana, Missouri. The plant produces Formaldehyde, Pentaerithritol, Synthetic Lubricants, and Nitroform ureaform. He and his wife, Teresa, have two children and live in the St. Louis area.

Steve Barrow (B.S., 1998) is an improvement engineer with Dow Chemical in Plaquemine. He received his MBA in May 2005 from LSU through the Professional MBA program. He and his wife, Rachael, welcomed their second child (Joshua Andrew) in January 2006, joining big sister-Lydia Elizabeth.

Johnny Boey (M.S., 1998) started his own internet sales company in 2003, after being an engineer for 4 years.

Catherine Gauthier Coats (B.S., 1995) has been with Halliburton Energy Services (Oil Field, Gulf of Mexico and Land) for over 10 years now (started in 1995). She works in Production Enhancement/Sand Control and received her license in petroleum engineering. She lives in Metairie with her husband of over 10 years, Ronald Coats, Jr. (LSU Biochemistry, 1994) and their two daughters-Rose (6 years) and Lily (7 months).

Sarah Beth Couvillon (B.S., 1994) has put her chemical engineering degree to work in the environmental field.

Rebekah Phillips Dotter (B.S., 1998) is currently back in Baton Rouge, working as a process engineer for Jacobs Engineering. She spent the last seven and a half years in Georgia working for Merck and Company, Inc. as a project and maintenance engineer.

Thomas D. Gildersleeve (B.S., 1996) graduated from LSU Law School in 2002 after initially working as a polyolefins process engineer. He is practicing environmental law with Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips in Baton Rouge.

Philip Hadaway (B.S., 1995) is currently working for Shell International Exploration and Production in New Orleans as a senior process engineer. He lives in Luling, Louisiana with his wife of two years. His main work scope is the development of deepwater heavy oil fields.

Martin Poole (M.S., 1993) is a process design manager at the Valero Texas City Refinery. He is also the past Chair of the Fuels and Petrochemicals Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Rakshay R. Shah (B.S., 1997) currently is a global business analyst for the Polyurethanes Business at the Dow Chemical Company. He has been working for Dow Chemical since graduating in May 1997. He has held various production and project positions in ehtylene manufacturing at Dow's Freeport, Texas, and Plaquemine, Louisiana, sites. He finished a part-time MBA at LSU in May 2003 and switched over to the business side of the chemical industry about four years ago.

Adrian Sherrill (B.S., 1996) is a first-year student at the Lewis and Clark School of Law in Portland, Oregon.

2000s

Chip Aloisio (B.S., 2002) is currently employed as an account manager by Champion Technologies in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Jennifer Bailey (B.S., 2003) is an improvement engineer at Dow Chemical in Plaquemine.

Laura Stromer Blanchard (B.S., 2004) is currently employed by PPG Industries in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She is married to Jared Blanchard, who is an electrical engineer with Entergy. She just had a baby girl, Lillian Elizabeth, in May 2005.

Benjamin Caire (B.S., 2005) is working as a production engineer in the Chlorpyridines Department at Dow's Pittsburg, California site.

Louis O. Chemin, III (B.S., 2000) is currently an Anesthesiology Resident at Emory University Health Sciences Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Geaux Tigers!

Stephen Cox (B.S., 2005) is a process engineer for ExxonMobil in Chalmette, Louisiana, despite the hurricanes.

Daniel Fontenot (B.S., 2002) works for Dow Louisiana Operations in Pressure Relief Design.

Warren Hachet (B.S., 2003) is currently employed with the Dow Chemical Company in Hahnville, Louisiana as a run plant engineer.

Damon Hall (B.S., 2004) works in the Process Engineering Department at Dow Chemicals in Plaquemine. He is currently a member of the Process Relief Design Team. He is also employed by Ford, Bacon, and Davis.

Trent M. Hebert (B.S., 2001) is currently working for Nalco, selling and managing water treatment accounts at various facilities in south Louisiana.

Rujun Li (Ph.D., 2003) is working at Corning Inc. in Corning, New York as a research scientist.

Scott Pollins (B.S., 2002) is a process engineer for Jacobs Engineering in Baton Rouge.

Suresh Raja (M.S., 2003) received his Ph.D. in Engineering Science in December of 2005. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Colorado State University in the Department of Atmospheric Science.

Kriangsak Vallopchotipong (B.S., 2002) works for York International as a service engineer. He currently resides in Thailand.

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In Memoriam

We were saddened to learn of the passing of the following alumni. We extend our belated condolences to their families and friends.

James Camille Aucoin (B.S., 1938)
Terry Baxter (B.S., 1980)
Jerry Thomas Boliew (B.S., 1961)
Benjamin Boussert (B.S., 1999)
Charles "Charley" Bradford Hunt (M.S., 1964)
Malcolm C. Lowe, Jr. (B.S., 1942)
Billy Wayne Magee, Sr. (B.S., 1963)
Kenneth C. Reibert (B.S., 1974; M.S., 1976;
Ph.D., 1982)
Leroy V. Robbins, Jr. (B.S. 1935)

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