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DANIEL W. FOX
1923-1989
BY JOHN F. WELCH
IN DECEMBER OF ]988, weak and sick with the cancer that
would claim his life less than two months later, Dan Fox, a
legend in the plastics industry and a founding father of the
$5 billion General Electric (GE)-engineered materials business,
made yet another exhausting trip to Tokyo to inspect a
new process for producing the Lexan polycarbonate resin
he had invented over thirty years before. It was to be his
last trip, but by no means the end of his quest for the
perfect material, which continued in the animated techni-
cal conversations he had with his saddening friends until
the clay he died.
I was a recent chemical engineering graduate on the job
interview circuit when ~ met Dan in 1960 at a GE plant in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts. They brought me in, late in the
day, to meet a fellow doing chemical research who, it was
claimed, had some ideas about new plastics. By early evening
was a goner, infected by his enthusiasm, enthralled with
his ideas, and impatient to work for him. It was the first,
and one of the few times ~ ever met a man who could not,
or would not, savor his triumphs. As soon as he completed
one of his many inventions, he would shift from passionate
advocate of his work to devil's advocate, criticizing its thermal
characteristics, solvent resistance, hardness or whatever, and
jumping into the hunt once again for a better plastic.
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
met him shortly after he had invented Lexan, yet he exhib-
ited none of the pride even the most modest of men allow
themselves over a recent achievement. If anything, he criticized
the shortcomings of the plastic even as the world was beginning
to celebrate its virtues. He wanted, instead, to talk about
the next project, in this case a polyether polymer resin,
which culminated in yet another GE plastic NoryI.
This cycle repeated itself over and over, with GE follow-
ing eagerly in his wake to market his creations. Dan was a
scientist, not a marketing man in the professional sense,
although qualities desirable in the marketplace were always
the goals of his experiments. He was, however, one of the
best salesmen I've ever seen when it came to squeezing
another million or two out of tight-fisted bosses for the
facilities and equipment to pursue his quests. I vividly
remember him coming to budget reviews with bulging pockets,
into which he would reach periodically to pull out a chunk
or strip of plastic that illustrated some characteristic he was
in a fever to explore.
He was inquisitive beyond measure, and his curiosity led
him up unlikely paths that often yielded astonishing rewards.
The discovery of Lexan was one of them, and its story has
become a legend at GE.
Lexan was created shortly after Dan joined the company
in 1953 after earning an M.S. and Ph.D. at the University
of Oklahoma. Scientists at the GE Research and Development
lab were tantalizingly close to developing a better thin film
insulating material for wire, but every material that server!
the purpose deteriorated when exposed to water. Dan recalled
a substance called guiaco! carbonate that had frustrated
him in graduate school precisely because of its resistance
to being broken down by boiling water. When he mixed it
with other ingredients as a possible solution to the wire
coating problem, he got what he callecl a "glob" of material
so hard he couldn't remove his stirring rod from it. By
then the wire coating problem had been solved by other
means, and the curious glob was kept around the lab like
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DANIEL W. FOX
105
an inanimate mascot, occasionally used to drive nails, sometimes
thrown down stairwells in futile attempts to make it break,
until its unique properties began to provoke increasing curiosity,
and then excitement. The world's best-selling high-perfor-
mance engineered plastic had been born, and within a few
years it had begun to appear in computer housings, automobile
bumpers, baby bottles, football helmets, and countless
thousands of other applications. But by then Dan was three
or four plastics down the road, pausing only long enough
to get, as he put it, "a big kick", when astronauts wearing
"fishbowIs" of his Lexan landed on the moon in 1969. In a
world full of people who come out for a third or fourth
bow, he was ever impatient to get on with the next act.
During Dan's thirty-six years with GE Plastics, he compiled
an astonishing record of inventions, achievements, and honors.
His forty-fifth patent was filed a month before his death.
The plastics that he invented, coinvented, or helped perfect
include, besides Lexan, Nory1, the commercial version of a
polyether polymer; polybutylene terephthalate, commercialized
as Valox resin; Alkanex wire enamel; and several others.
His other work focused on polymerization processes, and
he wrote the first book on polycarbonates in 1962, one of
the earliest of his twenty major technical publications.
Dan was inducted into the Society of Plastics Industry
Hall of Fame in 1976, and became its youngest living member.
He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering
in 1984, and in 1987 he was presented with the Midgely
Award by the American Chemical Society for outstanding
chemical research relating to the automotive industry. Around
GE he is commonly referred to as the "Father of Lexan,"
but he was, in fact, the scientific father of the entire business,
which is now number one in the world. His genius, cen-
tered in polycarbonates, included most areas of polymer
chemistry.
I have many fond personal memories of Dan decades
worth but some of the best were in the 1960s, whenever
we could drag him out of his laboratory and experience
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
the warmth, the humor, and the graciousness of the man
and visit with him and his wonderful wife Joyce, who never
got to see enough of him. Their home was the gathering
place for young engineers and scientists, always gaily deco-
rated at Christmas, filled with terrific food, and the scene
of many long and pleasant evenings. It was a treat for us to
be in his company, as if in doing so we might absorb some
of his brilliance.
Dan wasn't the worId's greatest manager. He was shy.
He never had a bad word for anybody, certainly couldn't
fire anyone, and was bored with the paperwork that went
with management; but he was as aggressive and confident
in the lab as he was unassuming and diffident outside it.
His great personnel talent was in the hiring and professional
cultivation of scientists. Scores of us proudly call ourselves
graduates of "Fox U."
Glen Hiner, who runs our plastics business, tells of visit-
ing Dan a day or two before his death. Punctuating his
customary harangue about technical issues and challenges,
and how they should be dealt with, were frequent prideful
references to his newborn grandson, a picture of whom he
kept on a table next to his bed, where he could see it. His
affection for the boy knew no bounds, and it was so typical
of him that, at a time when most men would stop to reflect
on the past, on a lifetime of achievement, in his grandson
he was looking toward, and loving, the future.
On February 15, 1989, my old friend and mentor, Dan
Fox, passed on. This nearly perfect man, ever in search of
the perfect plastic, finally found a perfect rest.
He will never be forgotten at GE.
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wonderful wife
