Petrochemical Heritage Award Past Recipients

2008 Petrochemical Heritage Award Recipients

Peter R. Huntsman and Dave C. Swalm

Past Recipients of the Petrochemical Heritage Award

Dan L. Duncan, 2007
As the controlling shareholder of privately-held EPCO, Inc., a company he founded in 1968, Dan L. Duncan has built one of the nation's largest and most successful energy companies by following the simple straightforward words of his grandmother: "Do the best you can everyday." These words of wisdom continue to serve as one of the guiding principles of a family of companies that now includes three publicly-traded partnerships with an aggregate enterprise value of more than $25 billion. The largest of these entities, Enterprise Products Partners, is one of the premier midstream energy master limited partnerships in North America.

In addition to his success as a businessman, Duncan is involved with the Baylor College of Medicine, the Weatherby Foundation International, and the University of Texas at Houston Development Board. Through his generous commitments to the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Duncan is committed to ensuring that Houston remains a crucial center of growth in the medical field. As a prostate cancer survivor, he hopes that the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine will provide hope and care to others in their battles with cancer.

J. Virgil Waggoner, 2006
J. Virgil Waggoner's distinguished career as a leading petrochemical industry executive began in 1950, when he joined Monsanto Company in Texas City as a research chemist. Switching from research to marketing, he steadily moved up to the position of senior vice president. He then became president of El Paso Products, the chemicals division of El Paso Company. In 1985, after leaving El Paso and becoming an independent consultant, he used his knowledge of the Monsanto-Texas City plant to team up with entrepreneur Gordon Cain, negotiating the leveraged buy-out of the plant and forming the legendary Sterling Chemicals. Waggoner was president and CEO of Sterling from its inception in 1986 until its privatization and his retirement a decade later. He served as vice chairman of the board until May 1998. Under his leadership, Sterling became a public company and has been included in both the Forbes 500 and Fortune 500 lists.

Since his retirement from Sterling, Waggoner has initiated a number of new business ventures. He is a senior founding principal of the Legacy Equity Group, a merchant banking firm dedicated to the "everybody wins" investment philosophy. Meanwhile, he continues to emphasize his commitment to global needs and the "bridge-building" thrust of his family's philanthropy. His board and advisory leadership roles include the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin, the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Board of Visitors, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Baylor College of Medicine, WaterHealth International, the Good Samaritan Foundation, and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Other past involvements include advisory roles with Phyto-Riker Pharmaceuticals, GulfWest Energy Company, Ouachita Baptist University, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and Sterling Chemicals.

Ting Tsung "T. T." Chao, 2005
A pioneer in the chemicals and plastics industries, T. T. Chao has founded and built several successful businesses in a career spanning more than 50 years. In the mid-1950s, Chao was a co-founder of Taiwan's first polyvinyl chloride (PVC) business. This business was backed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). A decade later, he established China General Plastics Group, which included a number of the premier publicly-held petrochemical and plastics manufacturers in Asia. After three decades of experience and success in Asia he entered the North American petrochemical industry in the 1980s with the acquisition of a polyethylene plant in Sulphur, Louisiana, and the creation of Westlake Polymers Corporation.

In the late 1980s, Chao founded the Titan Group in Malaysia by building the country's first and largest integrated petrochemical complex in the state of Johor. Chao was honored by the king of Malaysia in 1999 for his contribution to the growth of the Malaysian petrochemical industry. In 1992 Chao returned to his family home in China and founded a joint-venture company consisting of a PVC resin plant and downstream calendering plant near Suzhou. He now serves as the chairman emeritus and founder of the Titan Group and the founder of the Westlake Chemical Corporation.

William McMinn, Jr., 2004
William McMinn's career in petrochemicals has spanned more than five decades, beginning in 1952 at the Monsanto Chemical Company. He held various positions of increasing responsibility with FMC, Petro-Tex, and other leading companies until 1987, when he was named president of Cain Chemical, Inc. In 1989 Cain Chemical, which had been formed in 1982 in a leveraged buyout of seven ethylene-derivative petrochemical plants from various corporations, was sold to Occidental Petroleum for approximately $2.2 billion, generating roughly $1.25 billion in net proceeds for Cain Chemical's shareholders. Among the shareholders were 1,350 employees who owned 43% of the company and shared a windfall of $536 million.

From 1990 to the spring of 1997 McMinn was chairman of the board of the Arcadian Corporation, another company formed in a successful buyout (in this case, of eight nitrogen-based–fertilizer plants in North America from several corporations). He is currently involved with nanotechnologies and biopharmaceuticals and is a senior founding principal of the Legacy Equity Group, LLC, a new merchant-banking group dedicated to the late Gordon Cain's investment philosophy, “everybody wins.” A 1952 graduate of Vanderbilt University with a bachelor of science degree in chemistry, McMinn was a member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust from 1993 to 2002.

Harold A. Sorgenti, 2003
Harold A. Sorgenti served as president of ARCO Chemical Company from 1979 through 1987, when he became both president and CEO. He led the restructuring and reorganization of the company, splitting it into two businesses, Lyondell Petrochemical and ARCO Chemical Company. He holds ten U.S. patents that led to the commercialization of four new chemical processes, including one that is the basis of ARCO Chemical's position as the world's leading producer of propylene oxide. In 1991 he cofounded Freedom Chemical Company and built it into a broadly based specialty chemical company. He sold Freedom Chemical and formed Sorgenti Investment Partners in order to pursue other chemical investment opportunities.

Sorgenti is the president of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Regional Performing Arts Center, Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co., and Crown Cork & Seal. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Society of Chemical Industry. He has served as chair of the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the Society of Chemical Industry, and is currently chairman of the board of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. His honors include the Winthrop-Sears Medal, the William Penn Award, the Philip H. Ward, Jr., Medal, and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Herbert D. Doan, 2002
Herbert D. Doan, grandson of Herbert H. Dow, was president and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company from 1962 to 1971. He served on the Dow and Dow Corning boards of directors and in 1973 founded Doan Associates, the second venture capital company in Michigan. He chaired the board of Neogen Corporation and was on the boards of the Michigan Molecular Institute (MMI) and Dendritech, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of MMI.

In the public arena he served on the National Science Board (the governing body of the National Science Foundation) and the board of the Office of Technology Assessment. He worked with the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, cochaired Michigan’s Venture Capital Task Force, and served as president of the Michigan High Technology Task Force. Doan was a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society, and Sigma XI, and received several honorary degrees. He was been president and chairman of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation from 1996 until his death in 2006.

Jon M. Huntsman, 2001
Jon M. Huntsman, noted entrepreneur and philanthropist, built the Huntsman Corporation into an $8-billion corporation, with leading positions in the chemical, plastics, and packaging industries. As director of the American Chemistry Council and founding director of the American Plastics Council, he has worked to increase public understanding and the competitiveness of America's chemical industry.

Huntsman has also dedicated himself to supporting cancer research, famine relief, higher education, and care of the homeless by establishing such institutions as the Huntsman Cancer Institute, the Huntsman Award for Excellence in Education, and the Huntsman World Senior Games. He has received numerous awards including the Medal of Honor (Armenia), the National Caring Award, and the Kavaler Award for Chief Executive Excellence. A University of Pennsylvania alumnus, Huntsman and his family gave the university $10 million to endow the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business.

Ralph Landau, 2000
Ralph Landau, consulting professor of economics at Stanford University and research fellow at Harvard, was named one of the 75 leading contributors to the chemical enterprise by Chemical and Engineering News. In 1946 Landau cofounded Scientific Design, later Halcon International, and he remained a leader and visionary of the organization for 36 years. He also cofounded the Oxirane Company with Atlantic Richfield Corporation in 1966. He holds several major patents in organic oxidation chemistry and has authored more than 150 publications, including nine books. His list of honors includes: CHF's Othmer Gold Medal, the Founder's Award of the National Academy of Engineering, the Founder's Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Perkin Medal, the Pioneers Award, the Winthrop-Sears Medal, and the Chemical Industry Medal. Landau is a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He has guided research and writing on the significance of the chemical industries including Chemicals and Long-Term Economic Growth and Pharmaceutical Innovation: Revolutionizing Human Health (1998, John Wiley & Sons; Chemical Heritage Foundation).

John R. Hall, 1999
John R. Hall was named by Petroleum Magazine as "one of the 10 most influential individuals in the [petroleum] industry." He spent his career at Ashland, Inc., holding positions from chemical engineer through chairman and CEO. When he retired in 1997 after 40 years at Ashland, Hall had successfully restructured, streamlined, and built the company into a stable and rapidly growing enterprise. An outspoken advocate for high-quality public education, Hall has worked with the Partnership for Kentucky School Reform, the National Business Roundtable’s Education Task Force, the West Virginia Business Education Alliance, and the New American Schools Development Corporation. Hall also serves on a number of corporate, civic, and cultural boards. He is a past director of the National Petroleum Council, an honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute, and chairman of the board of Trustees at Vanderbilt University (his alma mater). In 1976, serving as chair of the National Petrochemical Refiners Association (NPRA), Hall played a key role in the establishment of the first annual International Petrochemical Conference.

John T. Files, 1998
John T. Files, chairman of the board of the Merichem Company, entered the petrochemical industry in the 1940s. After serving two years on the engineering faculty of the University of Texas (his alma mater), he joined Dow Chemical Company at Freeport where he was assistant chief engineer until 1945, when he left to start Merichem. Files and his team at Merichem pioneered a new technology of refining cresylic acids from refineries' caustic solutions. Now serving the global community, Merichem has become a major specialty chemical manufacturer that produces high-quality cresylic acids, naphthenic acids, and soda chemicals from petroleum. In 1982 Files was awarded the Winthrop-Sears Medal. After being appointed by Governor John Connally to the first Texas Air Control Board, he was awarded a citation of commendation for his pioneering work in developing the Texas Air Control regulations and standards. He also serves on the Engineering Foundation Advisory Council at the University of Texas and is a member of various industry organizations.

Gordon Cain, 1997
Gordon Cain, the first recipient of the Petrochemical Heritage Award, began his career as a chemical engineer at Freeport Sulphur Company and Merck & Co. Following service in the U.S. Army during World War II, he helped organize Petro-Tex Chemical Company. From 1964 until 1970 he managed Conoco's chemical business. Since 1970 Cain has founded or cofounded several companies that he has restructured through innovative management strategies, employee stock ownership, and leveraged buyouts (LBOs). In 1982 he cofounded the Sterling Group, a merchant banking firm that acts as sponsor for and invests in leveraged acquisitions, principally in the petrochemicals industry. He is best known for the successful LBOs of Arcadian, Cain Chemical, Fiber Industries, Sterling Chemicals, and Vista Chemical. Today, he serves on the Boards of Texas Petrochemical Corporation, Atlantic Coast Airlines, Arcadian Corporation, Agennix Incorporated, and Lexicon Incorporated. Cain holds the Winthrop-Sears Medal and the John Fritz Medal. He was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame in 1990.

Gordon Cain’s autobiography, Everybody Wins! A Life in Free Enterprise, was published by the Chemical Heritage Foundation and is now in its second edition. See also the Gordon Cain Fellowship in Technology, Policy, and Entrepreneurship.