Gifts of $1.2 Million/Year
INDUSTRY
Standard Oîi (înd.) and its subsidiaries and foundations are making gifts at the rate of about $ 1.2 million a year
Chemicals Today — a n d Tomorrow Products sold t o d a y w i l l still b e s o l d t o m o r r o w ; s a l e s m e n must l e a r n t e c h n i q u e of customer service U N E
O F THE FIRST LAWS of industrial
chemistry is that a chemical dies hard. Every single chemical substance is "unique" says H. H . Hass, president of t h e Sugar Research Foundation. For that reason, there is likely to b e a job somewhere that a given compound or element can d o best. Since chemicals meet hard deaths, Hass tells a sales clinic of the Salesmen's Association of the American Chemical Industry, salesmen will still b e selling caustic soda, sulfuric acid, and sodium chloride in the year 2000. Sales will still be m a d e in sulfa drugs, iodine, and penicillin in spite of the thousands of new antibiotics which will b e discovered in t h e next 45 years. New chemicals for the future depend upon company growth. One way to determine where growth in the chemical industry can b e expected, adds Hass, is by "Ewell's L a w . " This says that the rate of growth of an industry is proportional to the percentage of its sales dollar which is invested in research and development. According to this law the greatest amount of research, compared to sales is in drugs, and continues Hass, it is here that the highest proportion of total sales will be in new products. For example, developments in antibiotics t o reduce infection and disease, new techniques for attacking viruses such as the Salk vaccine, synthetic substitutes for cortisone, and synthetic diethyls tilbestrol, an imitation female sex hormone used to feed beef cattle. Also, the future indicates much work with enzymes, water fluoridation, antidecay dentrifrices, and mental treatment drugs such as reserpine and chlorpromazine. Besides the drug industry, the next largest growing business is electrical machinery, continues Hass. Here the chemical salesman will not b e selling transistors and vacuum tubes, but chemicals made under electronic controls. Another very research minded industry, according to Hass is industrial chemicals. Plastics production is now about 3 million tons per day. By 1975 this figure should be 8 million tons.
Starting materials will b e petroleum, natural gas, and coal, or sugar. Also, synthetic Umbers will continue to grow more rapidly than ooltun. Wool is destined to gc» t h e w a y of silk. Fluorocarbons ma)-/ solve the problem of textile cleanline-ss. Speaking of cleanliness, adds Hass, soap is on the way o u t . Not completely, of course, but to da. y five eighths of the market for soaps and detergents has been taken over lry detergents. Progress is also being m a d e in the fields of soil conditioning agents, n e w solvents, and, of course, atoimic energy. Despite the growth, concludes Hass, the principle thing the chemical industry has to sell is not chemicals but the technique of problem solving. Do the customers need b»etter goods, pesticides, elastomers, aplastics, surfactants, and lubricants? Don't forget that radical new inventions will occur. The products of these inventions will be materials t h e cheiriical salesmen must be prepared to selE. Such compounds are almost impossible t o imagine today.
\?V HILE THE ANNUAL RATE of philanthropic gifts b y Standard Oil (Ind. ) a n d subsidiaries, and foundations supported b y them, is usually about $1.2 million a year, the 1955 total will top $2.1 million. This increase from normal results from a special contribution b y Stanolind Oil & Gas to t h e University of Tulsa, valued in excess of $950,GGO. This gift consisted of some r e search labs at Tulsa used b y Stanolind before t h e completion of its n e w r e search center there in 1 9 5 3 . Standard Oil forecasts total 1955 cash grants to public service cause in these amounts : By Standard Oil Foundation, $825,0O0; by Stanolind Foundation, $95,000; and by Standard Oil and its subsidiaries ( American Oil, Pan-Am Southern, Service Pipe Line, Utah Oil Refining, Stanolind Oil Purchasing, and Stanolind Oil & Gas), $315,000. In the largest single category of Standard Oil's gifts are donations t o educational organizations. Such gifts b y the foundations a n d companies a r e expected to total about $500,000. Next largest total is for payments t o public welfare organizations of some $360,000. Youth organizations will receive about $235,000, a n d health organizations $55,000. Other civic, cul-
φ Isophthalic Hearing Availability Construction of this S t a n d a r d Oil (Calif.) isophthalic plant is proceeding on schedule and production Κ ί^Χ^Ο! ected\_* i u oicx. itasrt before the first οτ Lne year, it is designed to turn ou~t 5 0 million pounds of t h e intermediate yearly. Although the principal market for isophthalic is in the East, the ^ a n t is built at Richmond, Calif., to take advanatage of close integration with Standard's existing facilities. NOV.
7,
1955
C&EN
4737
