Alumni news

Gordon F. Brunner (B.S. 1961) received the 1999 ACS Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management. Brunner is the chief technology officer at Procter & Gamble. He has served on the company's board of directors since 1991, and is one of only four internal directors. In his eleven years directing the company's research, Brunner is credited with three primary areas of achievement: project leadership, innovation system improvements, and human resource development. He has been a driving force behind the technical development of many consumer products--combining an emphasis on in-depth scientific understanding with high standards for commercializing and sustaining product benefits in the marketplace. His focus on breakthrough innovations has also led to significant business-building initiatives. In addition to his engineering degree, Brunner holds an M.B.A. degree from Xavier University, Cincinnati.

Chung-Kong Chow (B.S. 1972) is a 1999 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award of the Wisconsin Alumni Association. The award recognizes professional achievement and service to the UW-Madison. Chow was a founding member and the first secretary of WAA's Hong Kong chapter. He is currently CEO of GKN PLC, an engineering, aerospace, defense, and industrial services group with operations in forty countries that employs more than 52,000 and had sales of $6.15 billion in 1998. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chow joined GKN in 1996 and became the first non-British CEO to head the 240-year-old company in 1997. Prior to joining GKN, Chow spent twenty years with the British multinational BOC Group PLC, where he held a variety of positions in Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, Britain, and the U.S. Chow and his wife, Ada, currently reside in London. Their son David studies English literature at UW-Madison.

Scott D. Maki (B.S. 1994) is currently working as a process engineer at CERAC, Inc. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Donald R. Paul (M.S. 1963, Ph.D. 1965), Melvin H. Gertz Regents Chair in Chemical Engineering and director of the Texas Materials Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, received the ACS E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. He has made substantial contributions to the field of polymer blends and has contributed to the development of many new commercial polymer products over the past 25 years. The key elements that led to the Murphree Award are the use of novel techniques for determining polymer-polymer interaction energies and the application of these techniques to design successful blend products, especially supertough thermoplastics. He developed structure-property relationships for aromatic polymers, which provide the basis for designing today's membrane materials. Paul is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has authored more than 425 articles. In addition to his positions at UT Austin, he is editor of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

David J. Zanzig (B.S. 1986) was elected chairman of the Akron Rubber Group, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the professional growth of those associated with the rubber and plastics industry and to educating its members in both basic and leading-edge technologies. The group's scholarship program supports four full-time students at The University of Akron in polymer science and engineering, chemical engineering, or chemistry. The Akron Rubber Group is a subdivision of the American Chemical Society's Rubber Division. Zanzig is a senior engineer in research and development at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, where he has been employed since graduating from UW-Madison. He has been granted 26 U.S. patents and has three publications in the field of polymer science and technology.