ROBERT H. WENTORF, JR.

1926-1997

BY ROBERT C. DEVRIES

ROBERT H. WENTORF, JR., retired staff scientist at General Electric Corporate Research and Development Laboratory, Schenectady, New York, and distinguished professor of chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, died at his home in Easton, New York, of a heart attack on April 3, 1997.

Bob was born in West Bend, Wisconsin, on May 28, 1926, the only son of Robert Henry Wentorf, chief engineer and product designer for the West Bend Aluminum Company, and Sophia Rusch Wentorf. Bob showed strong interest in things mechanical and chemical even as a young boy. He graduated at the top of his class at Northwestern Military Naval Academy and then continued on at the University of Wisconsin, where he was in a U.S. Navy V-12 unit from 1944 to 1945 studying engineering fundamentals. He earned his B.S. degree in chemical engineering in 1948. In graduate school at Wisconsin, Bob switched to physical chemistry and earned his Ph.D. in 1952 with a thesis on critical phenomena in carbon dioxide and sulphur hexafluoride. At Wisconsin he met Vivian Marry, and they were married in 1949.

Bob joined the General Electric Research Laboratory (later GE Corporate Research and Development Center [CRD]) on December 31, 1951, and moved to Schenectady, New York, in 1952 where his creative genius flourished. He became a legend in his own time for his seminal accomplishments in the synthe-