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DO N ALD J . B LIC K W EDE
1920–2011
Elected in 1976
“For leadership in engineering advancement in the steel industry.”
SUBMITTED BY THE NAE HOME SECRETARY
D ONALD JOHNSON BLICKWEDE, retired steel executive
and resident of Houston, Texas, passed away peacefully on
Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011, at the age of 90.
Blickwede was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 20, 1920,
the only child of Frederick Herman Blickwede and Laura Louise
Johnson Blickwede. After attending primary and secondary
schools in Detroit, he enrolled in the College of Engineering
at Wayne State University, graduating with a B.S. in chemical
engineering in 1943. At Wayne State he also served as editor
of The Wayne Engineer.
Upon graduating from Wayne State, Blickwede was
employed by the Curtiss-Wright Corporation in Caldwell,
New Jersey, where he worked until the end of World War II.
During his residency in New Jersey, he attended evening
graduate-level courses in metallurgy at Stevens Institute of
Technology. In September of 1945, Blickwede was accepted as
a graduate student in physical metallurgy at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and received an appointment to the
staff of the metallurgy department as a research assistant.
At MIT he studied under the tutelage of Dr. Morris Cohen,
one of the world’s outstanding physical metallurgists. Upon
graduation from MIT in September 1948 with the degree of
doctor of science in physical metallurgy, he took a position
37
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38 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
as head of the high-temperature alloys group at the Naval
Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
In early 1950, Blickwede accepted employment as a research
engineer at Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania. By 1963 he had advanced to the position of
vice president of research, a job he held until his retirement
in 1983. During 1969 he took a sabbatical to attend Harvard
University’s Advanced Management Program.
Among his many accomplishments at Bethlehem Steel,
Blickwede was instrumental in developing a process for
continuously galvanizing sheet steel and the invention and
production of a new grade of steel suitable for the application
of a fired ceramic porcelain coating. During the 1970s he
was involved in the invention and patenting of a corrosion-
resistant sheet steel particularly suitable for prefabricated
buildings. The latter product, now known as Galvalume, has
become the standard throughout the world for commercial
and residential siding and roofing. In addition, Blickwede
worked with architects and construction engineers to design
and build Bethlehem Steel’s Homer Research Laboratories
during the 1960s, which upon its completion and for many
years afterward was considered to be the premier metallurgical
research facility in the world.
During his career, Blickwede was active in various
professional organizations, most notably the Industrial
Research Institute, of which he was president in 1978, and the
American Society for Metals (ASM, now the American Society
for Materials), of which he was president in 1983. In 1977 he
was awarded the ASM William Hunt Eisenman Award.
Blickwede was also a renowned orator. During the course
of his career, he presented two distinguished lectures: the
Campbell Memorial Lecture at the 1968 meeting of the ASM in
Detroit and the Yukawa Memorial Lecture for the Japan Iron
& Steel Institute in Tokyo in 1983. He was elected a member of
the National Academy of Engineering in 1976.
Apart from his professional activities, Blickwede enjoyed a
wide variety of activities with his family, including trout and
salmon fishing, golf, and watercolor painting. In his later years
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DO N ALD J . B LIC K W EDE 39
he became especially involved in the latter, and in 1999 he
served as president of the Eastern Shore Art Association while
living in Fairhope, Alabama. In the last three years before his
passing, Blickwede won either first- or second-place prizes for
watercolor painting in the statewide competitions of the Texas
Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.
Probably Blickwede’s most beloved activity during his
retirement years was his leadership of a volunteer group for
the U.S. Forest Service while residing in Green Valley, Arizona,
during the 1990s. The “Hazardous Abandoned Mine Finders”
was a group of eight retired men who devoted at least one
day a week over many years to exploring a vast portion of the
rugged and remote southern Arizona mountains in search of
old abandoned mines, recording their locations and posting
warning signs for hikers and mountain bikers in the region.
The exercise, adventure, and camaraderie of those activities
were certainly some of the main factors in his enjoyment of a
long, healthy life.
Blickwede is survived by his beloved wife of 67 years,
Meredith Lloyd, who continues to live in Houston, Texas; his
son Jon Blickwede, also of Houston; daughter Karen (Kim)
Knowlton of Pocatello, Idaho; and grandsons Jon Jr. (Jack),
Jesus, and Rafael Blickwede.
