Thomas Grace

Thomas Grace was born on October 3, 1938, in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. He received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1960 and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1963.

Upon graduation, he joined the Lewis Research Center of National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) in Cleveland as an aerospace technologist. In 1965, he joined The Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton as assistant professor and research fellow. He served as chair of the engineering department of the faculty from 1970 to 1974 and was professor and senior research associate from 1976 to 1989. Mr. Grace held an adjunct professorship at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, from 1989 until 1994 and then became a part-time professor from January 1995 through June 1997. After that, he became an emeritus professor at IPST. In 1998, he became an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. He continues to serve in that capacity. In 1988, he formed T M. Grace Company in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Mr. Grace helped bring science to the field of chemical recovery technology, especially helping to put black liquor combustion in recovery boilers on a rational scientific basis. He led the development of the chemical recovery group at The Institute of Paper Chemistry to a level of excellence, and he developed and taught the course on chemical recovery technology, the first course of this type in the world. He demythologized the recovery boiler explosion experience, bringing focus to the most critical issues dealing with safety.

He is an associate editor of the Journal of Pulp and Paper Science. He is a member of TAPPI and a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He is also a member of the American Paper Institute recovery boiler committee and was secretary of the subcommittee on waste streams in recovery boilers.

Mr. Grace received the AIChE Forest Products Division Award in 1984; the TAPPI Engineering Division Beloit Award in 1991; and was named a TAPPI Fellow in 1987. In 2001, he received the Gunnar Nicholson TAPPI Gold Medal.

He is the author of 71 publications and the author of seven book chapters and reports dealing with the recovery process and related subjects.

Mr. Grace and his wife, Mary, have three daughters, Misty; Michelle; and Mara; and six grandchildren.

Robert W Hagemeyer

Robert Hagemeyer was born on August 23, 1925, in Detroit, Michigan. He enrolled at the University of Michigan where he received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1948.

He joined Wyandotte Chemicals Corporation, progressing to manager of the pigments department. In 1965, he joined Pfizer, Inc., as manager of paper industry products for the mineral, pigments, and metals division. In 1974, he joined J.M. Huber Company in Atlanta as manager of special projects. He retired from there in 1990, after which he served as a consultant and advisor to the industry until his death.

Mr. Hagemeyer is credited with having been the force behind establishing the coating division of TAPPI and later the coating and graphic arts division. He chaired both divisions and many of their conferences. He also served on the TAPPI board of directors.

Mr. Hagemeyer was the recipient of numerous awards during his career, including having a scholarship established in his name by the coating and graphic arts division. In 1985, he received TAPPI’s highest leadership award, the Herman L. Joachim Distinguished Service Award, and in 1995, TAPPI’s Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal Award. He is the only person ever to receive both awards.

He is the author of 41 publications. A seminal publication was “The Effect of Particle Shape and the Chemical Composition on the Packing Characteristics of Pigment Combinations”, TAPPI, 1960. This publication greatly increased the interest in calcium carbonate for improved coated paper sheets. Together with his helping to influence Pfizer to develop on-site plants, Mr. Hagemeyer’s promotion of the pigment through filler for fiber substitution saved the paper industry hundreds of millions of dollars, while generating improved products.

Mr. Hagemeyer died on January 15, 2001. His wife, Yolande, died July 5, 2003. They are survived by three children, Judy Randall Hagemeyer; H. John Hagemeyer; and Robert W. Hagemeyer Jr.

Matti Kankaanpää

Matti Kankaanpää was born on November 6, 1927, in Jyvaskyla, Finland. He obtained his technical education at Helsinki University of Technology, where he received a master of science degree in 1951. He worked at Wartsila, Kone ja Silta from 1950 to 1956, becoming chief engineer. In 1957, he joined Beloit Corporation in Wisconsin as research and staff engineer. In 1963, he joined Jaakko Pöyry, and was vice president when he left to join Valmet Corporation in 1971 as assistant director of the pulp and paper machinery division. In 1982, he was elected chairman, president, and chief executive officer. He retired in 1992.

The main focus of his career has been the further development of new technologies related to the papermaking process. Some of Mr. Kankaanpaa’s most important contributions were the Valmet Sym-Former and Speed-Former, as well as some of the Sym-Press family of high-speed press sections. These were patented under Mr. Kankaanpää’s name in the 1970s and ’80s and were developed by Valmet Corporation into highly successful products, having been applied to hundreds of paper machine deliveries by the corporation from the 1970s to the present time.

Mr. Kankaanpää has 30 patents in the field of papermaking. He wrote three chapters in the Technical handbook published by the Finnish Paper Engineers’ Association in 1968; an article on new sheet forming methods in Norsk Skogindustri in 1970; and a 1972 article in Paperi ja Puu/Paper and Timber.

A member of TAPPI since 1957, he was made a TAPPI Fellow in 1988. He received the Finnish Paper Engineers’ Association’s Lampen Medal in 1983 and an honorary doctor of technology, H.C., by Tampere University of Technology, Finland, in 1987.

Among his leadership contributions, Mr. Kankaanpää served as chairman of the board, Federation of Finnish Metal and Engineering Industries; vice chairman of the board, Confederation of Finnish Industries; chairman of the Finnish Foreign Trade Association; and chairman of the Finnish Academy of Technology.

He and his wife, Iris, were married in 1952. They have two sons, Jarmo and Kai, and a daughter, Heidi.

Harry F. Lewis

Harry Lewis was born May 27, 1891, in Denver, Colorado. His father was a secretary with the YMCA, and the family moved from Denver to Pueblo, Colorado, and then to Brooklyn and finally Manhattan in New York. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City, after which, he enrolled in Wesleyan University, where he received bachelor of science and master of science degrees in 1912 and 1913, respectively. He earned his doctorate at the University of Illinois in 1916.

Mr. Lewis joined the research staff of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry in Washington, D.C., and then the research department of the National Analine and Chemical Company, Buffalo, New York, where he helped develop the post-World War I dye industry in the United States. He taught organic chemistry at Grinnell and Cornell colleges in Iowa and also taught courses at Ohio Wesleyan University and the University of Maine.

In 1930, following The Institute of Paper Chemistry’s founding in 1929, Mr. Lewis was invited by Henry Wriston, president of Lawrence College and a member of the board of directors of the Institute, to join the staff as professor of organic chemistry. At that time, there were two students and one other faculty member, Otto Kress. Courses were also given by five Lawrence College professors. From 1933 to 1956, Mr. Lewis served at the Institute as dean and research associate, where he led the development of academic programs. In 1956, he retired as dean and became vice president; he then assumed emeritus status.

One of his most outstanding contributions to the paper industry was the enthusiastic selling to college students of the career opportunities in the industry. For many years, he was touring speaker for the American Chemical Society, visiting more than 200 colleges and universities.

Mr. Lewis was a member of TAPPI, serving as chair of the fundamental research committee for 25 years. He then became chair of the research and development division. He was a member of the executive committee from 1952 to 1954. He was also a member of the American Chemical Society, where he chaired the division of cellulose chemistry and the division of chemical education. Mr. Lewis represented the latter on the American Association for the Advancement of Science Cooperative Committee on the Teaching of Science. He served on several national research council committees. In his free time, Mr. Lewis was active in the YMCA on local, regional, and national levels.

Mr. Lewis, who authored numerous publications and was awarded 31 patents, received the Mitscherlich Award of the German Pulp and Paper Association in 1955; the TAPPI Gold Medal in 1956; and the Scientific Apparatus Makers Award in Chemical Education from the American Chemical Society in 1959. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Mr. Lewis died on November 17, 1969. He and his wife, Mildred, also deceased, had two daughters, Jean and Helen; three sons, Harry Jr. (deceased); Ben; and David; and 13 grandchildren.

Derek H. Page

Derek Page was born November 22, 1929, in Sheffield, England. He attended Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, England, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in physics, with honors, in 1953, followed by a master of arts in 1957, and his doctorate in 1968. In 1953, he joined British Insulated Calendars Cables as a physical chemist, and in 1955, the British Paper and Board Industry Research Association as principal research officer. In 1964, he joined the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada as section head in fibre physics, followed by division director of materials science, and then served as director of research for physical sciences until his retirement in 1993, when he was appointed distinguished professor of physics at the IPST. He is currently scientific editor of the Journal Pulp and Paper Science and is a consultant to the industry.

Since 1955, Dr. Page has applied his skills as a physicist and a microscopist to the understanding of the structure and properties of fibers and of paper. He and the teams he led have produced classical work in the fields of fiber structure; effects of beating and refining; strength of wet webs; fiber-fiber bonding; image analysis; printing; paper permanence; and the stress-strain curve and tensile strength of single fibers and of paper.

Dr. Page, who holds two patents and has authored or co-authored 112 published articles, was best known for his development of a theory for the tensile strength of paper in terms of the properties of the fibers and the structure of the sheet. The “Page equation” has been used extensively in industry to explain the processing change effects on paper strength.

A founding member of the TAPPI paper physics committee, Dr. Page subsequently became chairman. He was also chairman of the 1972 Gordon Research Conference on the Chemistry and Physics of Paper and founded and became the first chairman of the PAPTAC committee on recycling. He chaired the International Paper Physics Conference in 1973. Dr. Page edited the proceedings of the TAPPI seminar “The Physics and Chemistry of Wood Pulp Fibers”, Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1969. and served on the editorial advisory board of Pulp and Paper Canada from 1983 to 1993. He has served on the program committee of Oxford and Cambridge Fundamental Symposia since 1970.

Dr. Page was elected Fellow in the following organizations: TAPPI; International Academy of Wood Science; Royal Microscopical Society; and Institute of Physics. He is also a member of several other technical societies. In 1999, he received the highest honor granted by PAPTAC, the John S. Bates Memorial Gold Medal.

A member of the “Magic Circle” as an undergraduate student at Cambridge, he continued to give magic shows for children at PAPRICAN’s Christmas party until his retirement.

Dr. Page is married to Louise Auclair. He has three children by his first marriage, Susan, Ruth, and Elizabeth, and four stepchildren by his second marriage, Kathline, Jonathan, Elizabeth, and Marc. He has 13 grandchildren.

Dr. Page passed away on April 7, 2017.

Carl C. Landegger

Carl Landegger was born September 20, 1930, in Austria. He obtained his college education at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where he received a bachelor of science degree in 1951. Following graduation, he joined the U.S. Air Force as a 2nd. Lt. and served in the Philippines and Korea. Upon leaving the service, he joined Parsons and Whittemore Inc. and became assistant general manager of Black Clawson’s paper machine division in 1956. In 1961, he was named executive vice president, and in 1965, president and chief executive officer of Black Clawson. From 1976 to 1984, he was chairman of Parsons and Whittemore. In 1984, he purchased Black Clawson Company.During his career, Mr. Landegger led a team that was one of the pioneers of twin wire forming. His teams were also instrumental in improving the efficiency of recycling waste paper. He wrote over 100 articles for various journals covering business systems, forward planning, and technical matters,

Mr. Landegger was a trustee and director of IPST at Georgia Tech; director of Georgetown University; past director of the Pulp and Paper foundations of the universities of Maine and North Carolina; and former chairman of the Forest Engineering Institute of Canada. A TAPPI Fellow, he is also a TAPPI director and chairman of the TAPPI international division. He was awarded Austria’s “Goldene Ehrenzeichen” in 1995.

Besides his professional activities, he is a director of the New York Runner Club and of the Gregorian Foundation.
Mr. Landegger and his wife, Renee, have five children and 14 grandchildren.