Obituaries

Margaret D. Cameron, 86, died of cancer on Sept. 19.

Cameron received a B.A. in chemistry from Texas State College for Women in 1942 and served as a lieutenant in the Navy. She earned an M.S. from the University of Houston in 1948 and a Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1951, both in chemistry. She was a Fulbright Scholar and a Sir William Ramsey Fellow at the University of Leeds in England and then a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State University.

Cameron worked for three years as a research chemist at Monsanto before joining the faculty of what is now Lamar University in 1956. In 1990, she retired as professor emerita of chemistry. In addition to her friends, Cameron is survived by a niece.

An emerita member, she joined ACS in 1970.

Clyde R. Dillard, 86, a retired professor of chemistry and dean of students at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, died on July 6.

Born in Norfolk, Va., Dillard graduated from Virginia Union University in 1940 and earned a master's degree and subsequently a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Chicago. He excelled in academics and sports throughout his college career and while at Chicago.

Dillard was selected by Warren Johnson to join a team of scientists to conduct research on detecting noble gases as part of the Manhattan Project.

Early in his career, Dillard had teaching assignments at Tennessee College and at Morgan State College in Baltimore. Most of Clyde's career was at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

He coauthored more than 10 college-level chemistry textbooks and manuals, some of which are still textbooks of choice for many students and professors. In addition, some of these textbooks have been translated into Spanish and Hungarian.

In 1965, Dillard was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, which provided support for his research and teaching at the University of Osaka, in Japan.

He enjoyed playing bridge with his wife, Shirley, and participated in several local and national bridge associations. Dillard is survived by his wife, two children, and a grandson. An emeritus member, Dillard joined ACS in 1947.

John L. Duda, 70, a chemical engineering professor at Pennsylvania State University for 35 years, died on Sept. 24 of pancreatic cancer.

Known as Larry to his friends and family, Duda graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1958 and received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware in 1963. At that time, Duda joined Dow Chemical, where he worked on diffusion of polymers as well as designing the insulation system for the trans-Alaskan pipeline and the patented system of using insulation and a latent heat-storage component to keep the pipeline from melting the permafrost in the summer.

Duda joined the chemical engineering faculty at Penn State in 1971. He published three chemical engineering education papers with his wife, Margaret; was department chair during much of his tenure; and codirected until his death the Center for the Study of Polymer-Solvent Systems.

He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998, and in 2000, he won the E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry given by ACS.

Duda was probably best known for his great sense of humor and his pride in his family and his students, colleagues say. He had a number of hobbies but enjoyed few things more than a quiet repose on the patio of his home. He is survived by his wife, four children, seven grandchildren, and a sister.

Duda joined ACS in 1968.

Herbert J. Dutton, 92, a food chemist who also pursued environmental studies, died on Sept. 12.

Born in Evansville, Wis., he worked his way through the University of Wisconsin, Madison, earning his doctorate in 1940. During World War II, Dutton worked at the Department of Agriculture's Western Regional Research Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., on a Quartermaster Corps project to improve the quality of dried eggs and dehydrated vegetables. At USDA in Peoria, Ill., he worked on soybeans, particularly on the flavor problem that limited the use of soybean oil.

Despite high-level recognition for his work, he was more proud of his less publicized contributions to the field of photosynthesis. Spending the summer of 1941 at Trout Lake in Wisconsin sparked the lifelong love affair. His discovery of the high quantum efficiency of energy transfer from carotenoid to chlorophyll a in plants attracted the interest and citation of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Dutton retired from USDA in 1981, but he continued researching lipid metabolism problems with Ralph Holman at the Hormel Institute and was named an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota. He served in the Wisconsin state Self-Help Monitoring Program for decades, sampling a lake for phosphorus and chlorophyll and providing monthly profiles of oxygen and temperature versus depth. He also volunteered at a museum and sang in his church choir.

His wife, Nona, a research librarian, died in 1974. Dutton is survived by three daughters, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1944.

Edward O. Haenni, 99, a chemist who worked for the U.S. government, died on Aug. 28. Born in St. Louis, Haenni graduated from Washington University, St. Louis, with bachelor's and master's degrees. He completed a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Maryland.

Haenni spent most of his career with the Food & Drug Administration in Washington, D.C. During a short stint at the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md., he helped create an aerosol decontamination spray used by the military. He returned to FDA as director of the Physics & Chemistry Division.

After retirement, Haenni served as a U.S. representative to the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry. He reduced his travels to single-handedly care for his ailing wife but continued to write poetry and do award-winning charity work. His wife died of Alzheimer's disease in 1986. Haenni is survived by his daughter, two grandsons, and two great-granddaughters. An emeritus member, Haenni joined ACS in 1931.

Richard A. Heckman, 76, a chemical engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for four decades, died on June 10.

He earned a chemical engineering degree at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1950 until his retirement in 1990, Heckman worked at Lawrence Livermore.

Heckman traveled extensively and was a dedicated yachtsman and a blue-water sailor. He is survived by his wife, Olive, and two sons. He joined ACS in 1986.

Paul W. Miller, 77, a former research chemist at Dow Chemical, died on Sept. 25 of liver cancer complications.

Miller earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from West Virginia University and served in the Army at the Army Chemical Center in Edgewood, Md., from 1951 to 1953. He then worked for Dow Chemical as a research chemist in agricultural organics until he retired in 1986. Miller is survived by his wife, Virginia; four children; seven grandchildren; and two brothers. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1950.

Kaye L. Motz, 74, a researcher at Conoco, died on Sept. 1 after a nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Motz was born and raised in Indiana. He graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a B.A. in chemistry in 1954. He received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1958. Motz also completed one-year postdoctoral fellowships at both Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.

Motz joined Conoco in Ponca City, Okla., where he worked for 33 years and acquired 17 U.S. patents. Before retiring in 1993, Motz worked on technology to improve yields and prevent polymer formation during the ALFOL fatty alcohol process, as well as on processes for preparing trialkyl aluminum compounds, flow improvers for oil pipelines, linear ??-olefins, and antioxidants and for purifying hydrogen fluoride.

A strong advocate for education, he established scholarships and, with other volunteers from his church, tutored children. Motz was an accomplished private pilot and liked to bake and cook. He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Roberta; two sons; two siblings; and four grandchildren. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1958 and was an active member of the North Central Oklahoma Section.

Albert L. Myers, 90, professor emeritus of chemistry at Carson Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., died on Aug. 17.

A true son of Tennessee, Myers was born in Rogersville and grew up in Nashville and Jefferson City. He received a B.S. degree in 1937 from Carson Newman College, an M.S. in 1939 from the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. from Purdue University.

During World War II, he worked as an industrial chemist, first manufacturing TNT at plants in Allentown, Pa., and Sandusky, Ohio; later, he joined the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tenn. After the war, Myers served as a faculty member in chemistry at Ouachita University (1947-50), Furman University (1950-54), Houston Baptist University (1963-67), and Carson Newman College (1954-63, 1967-81).

Colleagues say Myers' legacy remains in the lives of the family he guided and influenced, the students he taught and inspired, and the friends and neighbors he loved and served. He is survived by Katherine, his wife of 65 years; three sons; nine grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and three sisters. An emeritus member, he joined ACS in 1942.

Charles Rees, 78, a professor and former president of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 1992 to 1994, died on Sept. 21.

Born in Egypt, Rees worked for three years as a laboratory technician at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. He graduated from University College, Southampton (later the University of Southampton) in England in 1950. He completed his Ph.D. there before being appointed assistant lecturer at Birkbeck College in 1955.

Rees moved to King's College London, where he spent eight years as a reader and lecturer. He was appointed to chair at Leicester University in 1965. He taught at the University of Liverpool for nine years, moving to Imperial College London in 1978, where he remained until his retirement in 1993.

His research interests ranged widely over mechanistic and synthetic organic chemistry. Much of his work was concerned with heterocyclic chemistry, particularly the synthesis and chemistry of new heterocyclic rings, with an emphasis on aromatic and antiaromatic rings, and the role of reactive intermediates in heterocyclic chemistry. Recently, he had been working on heterocyclic systems with unusually high proportions of nitrogen and sulfur heteroatoms.

Rees won numerous awards for his work. However, "he was a great wit and raconteur, with enormous charm, an expert on fine wines, and the finest company you could wish," said Richard Templer of Imperial College. Rees is survived by his wife, Tricia, and three sons. He joined ACS in 1963.

Edward Stiefel, 64, a chemist who bridged academia and industry, died on Sept. 4 of pancreatic cancer.

After graduating from New York University, Stiefel finished a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1967. He taught for seven years at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and then served as an investigator at the Charles F. Kettering Research Laboratory in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 1980, Stiefel joined Exxon. He invented thiomolybdate, an additive for lubricating oils; held 30 U.S. patents; and led the cleanup of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Stiefel arrived at Princeton University as the Ralph W. Dornte Lecturer with the rank of professor in 2001. Because his research interests included bioinorganic, coordination, and environmental chemistry of transition metals, Stiefel was affiliated with the Princeton Environmental Institute as well as the chemistry department. He was also a key investigator in Princeton's bio-solar hydrogen program.

Colleagues remember Stiefel for his exuberance for chemistry and teaching; his ability to see complex issues on scales from global to molecular; and his penchant for wonderfully tangential conversation.

He joined ACS in 1970 and won the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry in 2000. Stiefel is survived by his wife, Jeannette; a daughter; and two grandchildren.

Vincent G. Wiley, 80, cofounder of Wiley Organics, died on Aug. 13.

A Navy veteran, he earned a chemistry degree from Bowling Green State University. Wiley joined the staff of Ohio State University, where he worked with Kenneth W. Greenlee, a founder of ACS's Small Chemical Business Division and a former ACS councilor, on research that involved hydrocarbon synthesis, analysis, and testing.

In 1964, Greenlee and Wiley started Chemical Samples Co., which was later shortened to ChemSampCo. The company, for many years located in Columbus, Ohio, eventually became Wiley Organics and is now known as Organic Technologies and based in Coshocton, Ohio.

An avid hiker, gardener, and photographer, Wiley is survived by his wife, Marilyn; two sons; three daughters; three stepchildren; 21 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. He joined ACS in 1961.