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M A X S . P E T ER S
1920–2011
Elected in 1969
“For contributions to the study of kinetics and
mechanisms of chemical reactions.”
BY CAROL ROWE
SUBMITTED BY THE NAE HOME SECRETARY
M AX S. PETERS, who will be remembered for his strong
leadership and remarkable achievements over 16 years as
dean of engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, as
well as for his fun-loving personality, athleticism, and service
to the engineering profession, died on June 20, 2011, at the age
of 90.
Born in Delaware, Ohio, on August 23, 1920, Max grew up
in State College, Pennsylvania, the son of a noted professor
of education at Pennsylvania State University—Charles C.
Peters—and his wife Dixie. It is said that Max loved to run
footraces as a child for the sheer joy of competing and doing
well, a trait he exhibited throughout his life. After graduating
from State College High School, where he ran track and
made an early name for himself by scoring five touchdowns
at the football field dedication game, Max went on to study
chemical engineering at Penn State. He was active in a variety
of organizations, including serving as captain of the ski team,
before graduating with his bachelor’s degree in chemical
engineering in 1942.
After graduation he worked for two years as the supervisor
of a nitric acid production unit for the Hercules Powder
Company and then joined the Army in the middle of World
War II. This reportedly occurred over the protests of his college
dean, who claimed Max was needed more by the chemical
233
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234 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
engineering profession. But Max wanted to be where the
action was, and he chose rigorous infantry training as an Army
ski trooper in the 10th Mountain Division, A Company, 85th
Regiment. He participated in the Italian Apennine Mountains
and Po Valley campaigns, winning numerous medals for his
service, including two Bronze stars, the Silver Star, and the
Purple Heart.
Following World War II, Max returned to Penn State as a
graduate student and earned his master’s degree in chemical
engineering in 1947. He also married his childhood sweetheart,
Laurnell Louise Stephens, that year and went to work as a
technical plant superintendent for the G. I. Treyz Chemical
Company in New York. In 1949 he returned once again to Penn
State, where he completed his Ph.D. in chemical engineering
in 1951.
Thus began a career in which he would have a far-reaching
impact as a teacher, an administrator, and a leading air
pollution researcher. He joined the faculty of the University
of Illinois in 1951, and within a few years started research on
air pollution controls, including studies on reducing nitrogen
oxide from automobile exhausts catalytically and the effects of
lead on these catalysts. Eventually, his work and that of others
led to the use of catalytic converters in automobiles and the
elimination of lead from gasoline.
Max rose to become head of the Division of Chemical
Engineering at the University of Illinois. He spent just 10
years at Illinois before leaving to become the eighth dean
of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the
University of Colorado, Boulder. From 1962 to 1978, Max led
the engineering school through the construction of a new,
modern-day engineering center and oversaw significant
increases in research funding and improvements to graduate
education. “It was a golden time for research funding,” he
recalled upon his retirement in 1987.
Richard Seebass, who was dean of engineering at the
University of Colorado, Boulder, when Max retired, is quoted
as saying that “Max never ran a race he couldn’t win.” Indeed,
he succeeded in winning a $7.2 million grant from the state of
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M A X S . P E T ER S 235
Colorado and a $1.3 million grant from the National Science
Foundation to build the new engineering center in 1965—and
that was only the beginning. His team, which included longtime
friend Klaus Timmerhaus—whom he recruited from Illinois
to be associate dean, also won a $3 million National Science
Foundation Excellence Grant for faculty development and a
large grant from the Sloan Kettering Foundation to develop
joint graduate research with the University of Illinois.
At the same time he was building the school’s capacity for
research and graduate education, Max was able to continue
the school’s emphasis on undergraduate learning for its 2,000
students. He did not relinquish his teaching and research
activities while dean, choosing instead to teach courses ranging
from the freshman introduction to the senior design course in
chemical engineering. He also wrote many technical papers
and several textbooks on chemical engineering, including the
widely known Plant Design and Economics for Chemical Engineers
(McGraw-Hill, 1958), which is now in its fifth edition and has
sold over 100,000 copies. After Max wrote the original book,
Klaus and Ronald West joined him as coauthors on the later
editions.
Max also was active in professional service, so much so
that the College of Engineering and Applied Science created
the Max S. Peters Faculty Service Award and presented it to
him as the first recipient the year he stepped down as dean.
Previously, Max had served as president of the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), chairman of the
President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science, and
chairman of the Colorado Environmental Commission, which
presented a detailed report in 1972 on actions recommended
for the future of the state. He also served on the National
Research Council’s Advisory Board on Military Personnel
Supplies from 1977 to 1980 and later on the NAE Nominating
Committee.
Max also was active in the American Society for Engineering
Education (ASEE) and received its Lamme Gold Medal
Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering Education
in 1973. He also received ASEE’s George Westinghouse
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236 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1959 while at the
University of Illinois. Max served on the Board of Directors
and the Accreditation Committee for the Engineers’ Council
for Professional Development, and he chaired the National
Research Council Committee on Alternatives for the Reduction
of Chlorofluorocarbon Emissions in 1979. He also was active in
the 10th Mountain Division Association, serving as secretary
and president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter and on various
boards and committees in the Boulder community.
In 1969, Max became the first resident of the Rocky Mountain
region to be honored by election to the National Academy of
Engineering. The same year he received the Award of Merit
from the American Association of Cost Engineers. He was
named Engineer of the Year by the Professional Engineers of
Colorado in 1971, and he received the AIChE Founders Award
in 1974 and the Warren K. Lewis Award for Outstanding
Teaching in 1979. The University of Colorado honored Max with
its Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award (as a special
recipient), the Robert L. Stearns Award, and the University
Medal. Penn State University recognized his achievements with
its Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Engineering
Alumnus awards.
Max was a registered professional engineer in Pennsylvania
and Colorado and a fellow of AIChE. In 1983, AIChE selected
Max as one of 30 Eminent Chemical Engineers in the United
States, and in 1994 he received the Colorado Engineering
Council’s Gold Medal Award in recognition of his distinguished
engineering career. He also received centennial awards from
the ASEE for outstanding service in engineering education
and from the College of Engineering and Applied Science of
the University of Colorado, Boulder, for being one of the “Top
100” individuals in the college’s history.
Throughout his life Max enjoyed competing in athletics,
including running, skiing, ice skating, and later race walking.
In addition to being a member of Penn State’s ski team
during his college years, he served as an assistant coach of
the team as a graduate student, and as president of the Penn
Valley Ski Club, and he helped organize the Pennsylvania Ski
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M A X S . P E T ER S 237
Federation, serving as its first president in 1946. He won first
place in cross-country skiing at the 1947 Pennsylvania State Ski
Championships and was named “Outstanding Skier” of the
event. After leaving Penn State in 1948, Max had his own ski
school in Phoenecia, New York, and he continued to compete
in skiing events after moving to Colorado in 1962. He did well
in skiing competitions with the Rocky Mountain Masters Ski
Series, winning first place in his class in the downhill, and
second place in the slalom, giant slalom, and the combined, in
1986–1987. He was also a figure skater, focusing on ice dancing,
and he ran regularly in the Bolder Boulder 10K Road Race.
For Max, competition and fun went hand in hand. As dean
he shared his competitive nature with his students, racing
them annually during so-called engineering days. Creating
races that only he could win, Max manipulated the rules before
and during the races. His antics ranged from announcing
that the winner would have to wear an unusual hat and then
producing the wildest hat possible to devising rules that the
winner had to finish last, next to last, or third from last, then
running backwards, turning somersaults, and running around
trees with the baffled students following him. “I was the only
one who knew the rules,” he said playfully. “But the students
didn’t get mad. They just tried to outwit me.”
He served as dean of engineering until 1978, when he
returned to full-time teaching and research. Subsequently, he
served as chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering
from 1981 to 1985 and retired from active duties in 1987, when
he became professor emeritus of chemical engineering and
dean emeritus of the college.
Max is survived by his wife of 63 years, Laurnell Stephens
Peters, to whom he first proposed at the age of 6 while visiting
his grandparents who lived up the road from Laurnell’s
family, and their two children, Margaret and Stephen, and
four grandchildren, Emily, Katie, Hannah, and Grace.
