Credit:
Courtesy of Ben Jones
Recently, my granddaughter, Maddie Jones, received an American Chemical Society award for excellence in chemistry as she completed her sophomore year at William Penn Charter School. She was the only student at the school to receive a chemistry award; in the previous academic year, she was awarded the Raymond Evans Jr. Memorial Prize in Mathematics. I was certainly a proud grandparent then, but seeing her take to the sciences got me thinking about our family tree.
Maddie’s great-grandfather, Benjamin W. Jones Jr., passed away in 1983. The job from which he had ultimately retired was vice president of Pitt-Consol Chemical Company. I am sure that during his time in high school there were no student awards for excellence in chemistry. Nevertheless, chemistry was something he pursued.
He graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1929, a year that saw the Wall Street Crash, the first public demonstration of color television, and the first flight over the South Pole. My father went on to become an American Chemical Society member for more than 50 years. He was a global expert in the field of cresylic acid, holding several patents in that field.
As for myself, I’ve been an ACS member for 28 years. I graduated from another Pennsylvania school, Bucknell University, in 1962, a year that saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, the launch of the Ranger 3 space exploration mission. and the premiere of The Jetsons on ABC.
During the Cold War, I went on to serve with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in what was then West Germany and later retired as a Ranger-trained captain. Over my career, I’ve been a managing director, president, CEO, global sales director, publishing partner, publisher, and more—all tied to the chemistry enterprise.
Before digital publishing, I ran the commercial side of Chemical & Engineering News—published by the ACS—for 26 years. During this time, C&EN became the largest revenue-producing chemical publication in the world.
For the past 17 years, I’ve run my own global chemical consulting business. Part of this business includes running three industry golf outings whose proceeds go to scholarships for university students majoring in the chemical sciences or engineering. These scholarships have supported students at a number of places, including the chemical engineering department at Villanova University, the chemistry department at Drexel University, and the pharmacy school at Temple University.
Another example of continuing to encourage the next generation.
I joke that, in these years, I’ve observed myself getting older, while those in the rooms I’m in seem to be getting younger. I’ve seen the international growth of the pharmaceutical industry and contract development and manufacturing organizations, private equity ownership of chemical and related companies, and worldwide supply chain changes that have altered the way things are done globally.
Speaking of globally, I’ve noticed when looking at business cards that it’s getting harder to tell where someone is located geographically. And, bringing it back to my granddaughter, I’ve been around long enough to see a great increase of women in the industry.
Maddie’s chemistry teacher at Penn Charter, Christine Schwartz, says Maddie distinguished herself through “exceptional attention to detail, intellectual curiosity, and a strong commitment to excellence.” Those qualities are important in chemistry and, I suspect, in whatever direction she ultimately chooses to take in life.
Whether it’s your own grandchild or any other potential future researcher, engineer, health-care provider, problem solver, or what have you, science has the power to inspire the next generation. Recognition and support can help them pursue it—something I don’t see changing in the near future.
After all these years, I’ve come to appreciate that perhaps one of the most important things we can do is encourage the people coming behind us. My father did it in his generation. ACS has continued to do it in mine. And now I get to watch the next generation begin.
That, to me, is a pretty good reason to be optimistic about the future of chemistry.
Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of C&EN or the American Chemical Society.
