An address by the president of the American Chemical Society will highlight a seminar celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Northeast Wisconsin section of the ACS Tuesday, Oct. 11 at Lawrence University.
William Carroll presents “The Chemistry Enterprise 2015: Do We Have a Future, or What?” at 6 p.m. in Lawrence’s Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.
A vice president at Occidental Chemical Corporation, Carroll will examine the issues facing the industrial, educational and governmental aspects of the U.S. chemical enterprise in the global marketplace. Carroll will discuss energy and raw material supply, the global mobility of students for both undergraduate and graduate education, intellectual property protection and the use of taxation and other incentives to maintain and attract chemical businesses.
Carroll, who holds two patents, began his chemical industry career in 1978. He joined what is now Occidental Chemical Corporation the following year. As Occidental’s vice president of Chlorovinyl Issues for OxyChem, he directs public policy issues related to chlorine and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and has served on expert groups commissioned by the United Nations Environmental Program, the state of Florida and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. In 2000, Carroll was honored by the Vinyl Institute with the Roy T. Gottesman Leadership Award for lifetime achievement.
Carroll earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics from DePauw University and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Indiana University, where he holds an adjunct professor of chemistry position and teaches a course on polymer chemistry.
Lawrence University Associate Professor of Chemistry Karen Nordell is the current chair of the Northeast Wisconsin section of the ACS, which includes several hundred academic and chemical industry members from the region.
