Obituaries

Pritchard C. Douglass, 94, a Bausch & Lomb chemist, died on May 21, 2007, at home in Walworth, N.Y.

Having grown up in Syracuse, N.Y., Douglass earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1936 from Houghton College in Houghton, N.Y.

He then studied botany at Cornell University for a year before moving to McKeesport, Pa. There, he took a laboratory position with G. C. Murphy Co., testing many of the products sold in its five-and-dime stores.

After a few years, he moved to Rochester, N.Y., and accepted a job with Bausch & Lomb, electroplating metals and testing lubricants and finishes for binoculars and other optical components for use in World War II.

In 1948, Douglass moved to Pittsburgh and took a position with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, conducting research on the chemical and physical properties of materials such as nylon for Clark Thread Co. In 1951, Clark Thread hired him to work at its Newark, N.J., headquarters. The following year, the company merged with J. & P. Coats to become Coats & Clark.

In 1953, Douglass returned to Bausch & Lomb in Rochester, continuing his research in lubricants, lacquers, and electroplating. He also helped to develop a commercial process for anodizing aluminum eyeglass frames. He retired in 1978.

Douglass is survived by two sons, Kenneth and Steven; a daughter, Marilyn Wold; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. He had been a member of ACS for 63 years.

Richard J. Garascia, 89, professor emeritus of chemistry at Xavier University, Cincinnati, died on July 31, 2007.

A native of Detroit, Garascia earned a B.S. degree from the University of Detroit in 1940, an M.S. from the University of Michigan in 1941, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1950.

Garascia worked for Cook Paint & Varnish Co. in Detroit before starting his long career with the chemistry department at Xavier in 1942. During World War II, he and one other faculty member taught all of the chemistry courses at Xavier. He served as department chairman for five years, retiring in 1985. Garascia's research interests included the chemistry of polynuclear aromatic compounds and heterocyclic compounds of arsenic and phosphorus.

He served with the Cincinnati Air Pollution Control Board and also the local Environmental Task Force. He joined ACS in 1943 and served as treasurer of the Cincinnati Section.

Predeceased by his wife, Dorothy, he is survived by five sons, two daughters, 12 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

Fred E. Kiviat, 67, died on July 17, 2007, when he was hit by a car while walking near his home in Salisbury, Md.

Born in the Bronx, N.Y., he received a B.S. in chemistry from the City College of New York in 1962. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1968 from the University of Pittsburgh, and in 1978, he also earned an M.S. in industrial engineering there.

Early in his career he worked in R&D for Gulf Oil, conducting research in areas that included alternative energy sources. Most recently, he worked as a research associate at DuPont in Seaford, Del., retiring in 2004.

Once retired, he returned to school, taking classes at Salisbury University in a range of fields from meteorology to economics to journalism. His hobbies included astronomy and Civil War history.

Kiviat is survived by his wife of 30 years, Jan; a son, Tim Vogel; a daughter, Barbara Kiviat; and three grandchildren. He had been an ACS member for 36 years.

Albert I. Meyers, 74, a University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Colorado State University, died on Oct. 23, 2007.

Born in New York City, Meyers received a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1954 from New York University, remaining there to earn a Ph.D. in organic chemistry under the direction of J. J. Ritter in 1957.

He began his academic career in 1958 as an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. From 1965 until 1966, he was named a special National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, where he worked with E. J. Corey. Then, in 1970, he accepted a professorship at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Meyers joined Colorado State's faculty in 1972 as a professor in the department of chemistry. In 1986, he was named a University Distinguished Professor and held the John K. Stille endowed chair from 1993 until 2002, when he became University Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

His major interests and research contributions were in the areas of asymmetric synthesis, heterocyclic chemistry, and biomedically significant natural products synthesis.

Meyers was one of the first to duplicate nature's ability to create distinct optical isomers of organic compounds through asymmetric carbon-carbon bond-forming processes. Later in his career, Meyers' research focused on designing new methods for creating molecular architecture that might aid in fighting diseases.

Meyers served as a senior consultant to a number of pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline and as a member on the scientific advisory board of several biotechnology companies.

He received more than 75 national and international awards and honors, including the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry in 1985; an ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 1987; the Yamada Prize from the Chemical Society of Japan in 1996; and the International Award in Heterocyclic Chemistry in 1997. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1994. He served on a number of editorial boards and was an associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society from 1980 until 1984.

Meyers' wife of 50 years, Joan, died of cancer shortly after his death. He is survived by a son, Harold; two daughters, Jill Bombel and Lisa Thompson; and seven grandchildren. He was an ACS member for 53 years.