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Andrew Gibson

Brought my new bride Shirlie to Lehigh beginning of my senior year in Chemical Engineering.  She worked as RN at St. Lukes while I did 3 nights a week at Bethlehem Steel on open hearth furnaces.  Had started with class of '51' but took a year off to earn funds to finish with class of '52' .  Have worked for 7 companies.  Six of whom no longer exist, including Union Carbide and Georgia-Pacific where I spent 20+ years at each.  Did extensive international work including behind iron curtain while Russians occupied Czechoslovakia.  Led engineering team that commercialized most successful polyethylene process, now comprising 50% of world output.  Married to Shirlie for 61 years and raised 4 children, moved 13 times and now in retirement center near Wilmington Delaware, close to only daughter and oldest son.  Still affiliated with Lehigh in commercializing technology developed in Chem Engr department under Prof. Israel Wachs. – Late March 2012

Bill, I hope to make the reunion if medical issues of my wife and I permit.   Keeping my hand in professionally by commenting on efforts needed by the government to make energy production more efficient and how we can increase conservation in industry with new technologies developed at Lehigh.

We have relocated in Delaware from Atlanta as of Sept 1, 2011.  New address is 726 Loveville Rd.  C-51, Hockessin, DE 19707.  Also changed E-mail (Write to Web Master for new address) – Andy - Early March 2012

Fall, 2007 Alumni Bulletin -  Andy Gibson sent an e‑mail covering the memorial services for Ed Leidheiser held March 31 in Flat Rock, N.C., at Grace Lutheran Church.  Andy, Harry Smeal (deceased) and Bob Scarr (deceased) - All "52" - attended.  Reflections on Ed's full life were made by his family and his wife, Mary‑Lou.  Ed will be sorely missed.

March 2007:  Brought sad news about the death of Ed Leidheiser.  As you see below, they were good friends.

November 2006: My wife, Shirlie and I visited Ed and Mary Lou Leidheiser (deceased)  in Flat Rock, NC for an afternoon last week.  Ed and I were classmates in the Chem Engr curriculum. They entertained us with vivid and beautiful digital pictures of their safari trip to Tanzania earlier this year.  In late September, also visited Al Walker, ChE,'51' and his wife, Miriam in Hilton Head Island, SC.  He and I worked at Union Carbide for many years together.  Al played varsity basketball at Lehigh but now is heavily involved in organizing and coordinating golf tournaments held in their retirement community in Hilton Head Plantation

February 2004:  I was honored to receive the Engineer of the Year award in December from the Atlanta and North Georgia Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Have had recent activity with Lehigh in the efforts to commercialize some of the intellectual properties originating in the Chemical Engineering Dept., specifically those of Prof. Israel Wachs.  A trip with him is scheduled to Scandinavia in late March to present the technologies to potential clients.

August 2003:  Andy & Shirlie Gibson are planning a visit to Ed & Mary Lou Leidheiser (deceased)  in Flat Rock NC.  Also visiting will be Marilyn & Bob (Dutch) Paul Walton (deceased)(53-ChE) from Phoenix AR (Sun City West). Ed & Andy are Chem Engr classmates and Bob and Ed were both on Lehigh's baseball team.  Bob & Andy and their families lived in the same towns and cities and were transferred about the same time to the same places as part of their careers with Union Carbide.  So there will be lots of memories to review!!

From 50th Reunion Book, 2002 - Any narration of my life since attending Lehigh must include my wife, Shirlie, because she became a "Lehigh wife" September 11, 1951, which also marked the beginning of my senior year.  (That date, of course, is now firmly implanted in our minds for other reasons.)  She worked as a nurse at St. Luke's Hospital while I studied and tapped open-hearth furnaces 3 nights a week at Bethlehem Steel.  So, in a small way, this 50 reunion will be hers, too. 

We left Lehigh for West Virginia where I began a 22-year career with Union Carbide Corp.  Experiences included duties in production of fine chemicals, process and project engineering of new petrochemical plants and a 6-year stint at engineering, commercializing and licensing their highly regarded polyolefin technology which now accounts for over 70% of the world's capacity.

Four children (3 boys, 1 girl) came and 6 house moves were made due to transfers back and forth between West Virginia and Houston.  Much time was spent overseas supporting these pioneering licensing efforts in 7 countries.  Shirlie's log for 3 years had me gone 75% of the weekdays and 25% of the weekends!  We next experienced 6 years as Director of Engineering for Olin Chemical and later VP with John Brown Engineering, both in Stamford, CT, not too far from our hometown of Stratford, CT. 

The south beckoned us, however, and I became head of corporate Chemical Engineering for Georgia-Pacific Corp. for the final 20 years of my career, based in Atlanta, GA.  Currently consulting under nom de plume of Gibson Technologies Inc.  Vivid memories include arriving in Prague for licensing negotiations 3 months after the Russian "putdown" of 1968 and seeing buildings freshly pockmarked with the shells of Russian tanks.

Most important in my life has been the unflinching support of my "bride" of 50+ years, Shirlie.  Following closely has been the support of our 4 children and 1 nephew whom we raised.  Without their robustness and tenacity in tolerating the 13 total house and school moves that were made, none of the above would have been possible.

October, 2001 - RECOLLECTIONS OF MY (OUR) LEHIGH EXPERIENCE
ANDREW GIBSON, ‘52’ ChE

My recollections of my years at Lehigh must include my wife, Shirlie because she became a "Lehigh wife" at the beginning of my senior year.  Her support earned her a "PHT" certificate,---"Putting Hubby Through"--- duly handed to her by the officials at graduation! (Is this still done?).

Harking back to my beginning years, however, I remember vividly my first view of Lehigh.  I had come by bus from Sratford, Connecticut, disembarking on the North side at Broad and New Streets with two suitcases.  It was a chilly, damp, drizzly, gray day.  Looking across the Lehigh River from New Street, I saw the spires of the campus partly enshrouded in the fog created by the belching stacks of Bethlehem Steel.  Add in the smells of burnt coke and blast furnace emissions and the total picture made me wonder, ‘what have I come to?’  (I did not have the advantage of pre-visiting; a scholarship offer made up my mind that Lehigh was to be my destiny).  Trudging across the old New Street Bridge with my suitcases, I made my way to the registration lines on campus.  Some of those I met in line that day have remained friends for the past 50+ years !!

Life as a freshman had me housed in town the first semester because of the lack of dormitory space.  A 2nd semester move into Richards House was most welcome.  Work as a busboy and dishwasher at Lamberton Hall provided meals without denting my meager budget.  The experience did challenge my palate to find a better source of cuisine, however.  In my sophomore year, a move to Drinker House and a job waiting on tables at Alex Kozar’s New St. Diner provided new friends and a much improved cuisine.  It was the original "I’ll work for food arrangement" !

The freshman curricula included courses in World Civilization by Prof Aiken, my first indoctrination to the breadth and depth of the history of man’s civilization.  It was a course I was only able to appreciate fully many years later when I was thrust into dealing with other cultures in other countries.  English courses came easily as a result of my high school teacher’s insistence on our writing one composition every week, which, at the time, was seen as a dreaded homework chore.  I only appreciated her insistence after being exposed to the demands of Lehigh’s English Dept. ! Bless all our English teachers !!  These and other non-engineering courses gave me, I believe, a better-rounded education than many engineering graduates of other Universities.

Other activities of campus life are fondly remembered:

• Singing in the Glee Club directed by Prof. Schempf

• The Chapel Choir participation and Chaplain Bean

• Ushering at the magnificent Bach Choir festival in the Chapel

• Dating Cedar Crest and Centenary girls

• The annual houseparties

• Quiet times in the library

• Cramming for exams until the wee hours

• The smell of chocolate in Prof. Eastman’s organic lab (he was a consultant for Hershey’s and used to let us eat the samples he was finished testing !)

• The Chem Engr Dept had a Unit Operations lab and our senior class had the task of calibrating a distillation column that had been built by the preceding class.  Nothing worked right and we struggled with it for weeks.  Finally, someone had the bright idea to open it up (no small job) and look inside.  Lo and behold, the distillation trays had been installed upside down !!  We were never certain whether the class of ’51’ had done it on purpose or were too dumb to realize what they had done !!

During my junior year, I started a dry-cleaning service in Drinker and Richards Houses, together with my mechanical engineering room-mate, Ed Pawlak (Not found in records).  Pants were 50 cents a pair and a suit was only $1.00!  We would pick up articles on Tuesday, have them cleaned by a wholesale cleaning service, and deliver them by Friday!  A higher paying part-time job became available the second semester in the open-hearth furnace department at Bethlehem Steel, thanks to the close relationship that existed between the University and the company.  Little did I realize that in 6 weeks I would be tapping the steel from the back-end of these furnaces!!  Three nights a week of this exhausting work proved all I could handle but it was sufficient to provide the necessities of campus life.

That same year, the Chemical Engineering Dept. faced the loss of Prof Mack as Dept Head and announced the arrival in my upcoming senior year of Prof. Allan Shivers Faust from the University of Michigan.  He was to be an inspiration to many of us and those who followed in succeeding years.

My senior year was considerably enhanced by the arrival of my new bride, Shirlie (she’s now my 50-year bride).  We set up housekeeping at 313 W. 4th St in Bethlehem in a 3rd floor apartment (it’s still there!).  The rent was $50 per month.  Laundry had to be hung out on a line by walking out on the roof of the second floor porch!  Classmates Wally Field and Gil Epstein (deceased) will remember working on group projects in that 3rd floor flat.

Shirlie quickly found employment as a nurse at St. Luke’s hospital where the doctors allowed broad responsibilities due to the short staffing. (So what else is new—hospital staffing is still short).  For her it was a great learning experience.  She and the other student-wife nurses usually pulled weekend duty constantly.  The supervisors knew they wouldn’t complain since the money was needed and they would be gone by the end of the school year !!  We didn’t mind because I was also working the weekend days at the open-hearth.

Come graduation time, Shirlie and I are hastening to pack up and depart Bethlehem, when Prof Zettlemoyer refuses to sign my senior Chem Engr project paper done for the Printing Ink Institute, his favorite sponsor.  Seems I neglected to acknowledge them at the end of my paper!.  A last minute correction and insertion into the manuscript provides the final approval and allows our departure for a new job and new vistas with Union Carbide in West Virginia.

Deja vu---50 years later I find myself sitting in the late Prof. Zettlemoyer’s office in my role as a liaison officer for contract research that my last employer, Georgia-Pacific Corp,. is conducting with Lehigh.  Small world !!  But that is another story for another time,----.

March, 2001 - I haven't seen many of our classmates nor been in contact with them, except for Wally Field, a fellow Chem E. and active funds solicitor for Lehigh Alumni.

However, I have had the pleasure of doing some contract research work with the Chem Engr Dept's. Center for Surface Studies named after Prof. Zettlemoyer, one of our ChE professors for the class of '52'.  The person heading this area is Prof. Israel Wachs and I have been working with him on projects for about the past five years.  The work done has been very impressive and has resulted in about 8 patents at this writing with more to come.  They deal mainly with new methods of making valuable chemicals from waste gases and also with some new chemical pathways to make commodity chemicals from natural gas.  Lehigh is the owner of the patents but the sponsoring company, Georgia-Pacific, has exclusive rights to commercialize the technologies.  In such a case, Lehigh gets a share of the royalties!  So it has been a good effort and one I've enjoyed for it takes me back to Lehigh every so often. 

I am looking forward to the reunion in 2002.