Roy G. Neville

Roy G. Neville begins the interview by tracing his family history back to the year 700. He discusses his immediate family and his childhood in Bournemouth, England. Neville admits that he was not very impressed with his first chemistry lesson, but was intrigued by doing chemistry experiments in his makeshift home laboratory. He excelled academically and was accepted at Balliol College, University of Oxford. However, Neville was drafted into an industry of "national importance" and was unable to attend Balliol. After a brief stint at Signals Research and Development Establishment, Neville met Professor Neil Kensington Adam, who allowed him to attended the University College Southampton part-time. Neville continued to excel and was invited to do graduate research in the U.S. at the University of Oregon. While at Oregon, Neville received his master's degree and Ph.D. and met his future wife, Jeanne.

Neville goes on to describe his employment at various companies and the problem of being a chemist in industry. To combat this problem, he established Engineering and Technical Consultants, Inc. Being an entrepreneur allowed Neville to spend more of his time and money on collecting rare books. He details the start and growth of his rare book collection and his near decision to sell the collection in 1965. He discusses his competitors, how he obtained many of his rare treasures, and the start of The Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Finally, Neville concludes the interviews with reflections of his childhood in Bournemouth during the start of World War II.

Monsanto Chemical Company

1955 - 1957 Senior Research Chemist

Boeing Airplane Company

1957 - 1958 Senior Chemical Engineer

Lockheed Missiles & Space Company

1958 - 1961 Research Scientist

Aerospace Corporation

1961 - 1963 Member, Technical Staff and Polymer Chemist

North American Aviation, Inc.

1963 - 1967 Principal Scientist

Boeing Science Research Labs

1967 - 1969 Head, Polymer Research Lab

Bechtel Corporation

1969 - 1973 Senior Scientist Specialist, Science Development Department

Engineering & Technical Consultants, Inc.

1973 - Present President and Consultant

James J. Bohning

James J. Bohning is professor emeritus of chemistry at Wilkes University, where he was a faculty member from 1959 to 1990. He served there as chemistry department chair from 1970 to 1986 and environmental science department chair from 1987 to 1990. Bohning was chair of the American Chemical Society’s Division of the History of Chemistry in 1986; he received the division’s Outstanding Paper Award in 1989 and has presented more than forty papers at national meetings of the society. Bohning was on the advisory committee of the society’s National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program from its inception in 1992 through 2001 and is currently a consultant to the committee. He developed the oral history program of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and he was the foundation’s director of oral history from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to 1998, Bohning was a science writer for the News Service group of the American Chemical Society. He is currently a visiting research scientist and CESAR Fellow at Lehigh University. In May 2005, he received the Joseph Priestley Service Award from the Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society.