ECS President | 1915-1916 Lawrence Addicks was born in Philadelphia, PA on March 3, 1878. He received a B.S. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899. He worked as a draftsman in New Mexico for a year before joined Raritan Copper Company in 1900. He was in charge of the testing laboratory and later became assistant to the superintendent. From 1905 to 1914, Addicks was Chief Engineer and Superintendent for U.S. Metals Refining. In 1914, he resigned and became…
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ECS President | 1921-1947 Colin Garfield Fink was born in Hoboken, New Jersey on December 31, 1881. After graduation from Columbia University in 1903, he went to Leipzig for graduate study. Here he received the Ph.D. degree with highest honors. Returning to America he joined the research staff of the General Electric Company. In 1917 Dr. Fink became chief chemist for the Chile Exploration Company and went from that position, in 1921, to Columbia where he became head of the…
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ECS President | 1921-1922 ECS Treasurer | 1924-1931 Acheson Smith’s career in the electrochemical industry was parallel to the growth of the industry itself. In 1905, he associated himself with the Acheson Graphite Company, first in experimental work in the commercial application of graphite products made in the electric furnace. Later Mr. Smith became Vice-President and General Manager of Acheson Graphite Company at Niagara Falls, N.Y. In 1926, he was elected President of the company and also Vice-President of National…
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ECS President | 1925-1926 Frederick Mark Becket was born in Montreal, Canada on January 11, 1875. He attended McGill and Columbia Universities, receiving his degree of B.Sc. from McGill in 1895, and his M.A. from Columbia in 1899. In 1929, Columbia bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. In 1934, McGill bestowed him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. During the early years of his professional career, Dr. Becket was associated with the Westinghouse Electric &…
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ECS President | 1935-1936 James H. Critchett was born in Watertown, Mass. in 1886. His technical education was obtained at Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduating in 1909. He was employed by the U.S. Steel Corporation at the South Chicago plant. His first job was on the installation of one of the first large electric steel furnaces to be installed in America. Later he became assistant superintendent of the Electric Furnace Department. The following years were spent in the construction and…
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ECS President | 1941-1942 Raymond R. Ridgway was born in Morris, Illinois on August 27, 1897. He was one of the outstanding research men in electrothermics in the 20s and 30s. He was a research engineer with the Norton Company of Chippawa, Ontario, Canada. He contributed a long list of inventions in the design of electric furnaces of the resistor type; improvements in the production of fused alumina, silicon carbide and magnesia; and the production of hard metal carbides. One…
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ECS President | 1943-1944 ECS Secretary | 1947-1949 ECS Treasurer | 1931-1943 Robert Martin Burns was born in Longmont, Colorado on January 9, 1890. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1915 and remained for the M.A. degree which he received in 1916. During this period. he was an instructor in chemistry. His studies were interrupted by the first World War in which he served as a Second lieutenant in the Chemical Warfare Service. After his discharge in 1919,…
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At every ECS meeting, there is generally one technical session that everyone can attend, and that is the ECS Lecture. The Society has benefited over the years from invited lectures delivered by a series of notable speakers. In earlier days, there were the Joseph W. Richards Memorial Lectures in honor of the Society's first president. These lectures were presented annually and the texts were published in ECS Transactions. The Richards Lectures were discontinued after 1958. In 1970, the policy of...
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ECS President | 1989-1990 Elton James Cairns was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 7, 1932. He received B.S. degrees (Summa Cum Lauda) in chemistry and in chemical engineering from the Michigan Technological University in 1955. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1959. Dr. Cairns joined the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York in 1959. He conducted research on ion-exchange membrane fuel cells, electrocatalysis, surface chemistry, the anodic oxidation of…
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ECS President | 2011-2012 Esther S. Takeuchi is currently a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University and a chief scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. She previously held the rank of SUNY Distinguished Professor at the University at Buffalo SUNY in the Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Chemistry. Her interests focus on materials, electrochemical power sources, and medical devices. She joined the University in 2007 after a 22-year career at Greatbatch, Inc., where she was involved in...
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