today won the field and consumers are no longer willing to return to the former sources of supply with theii attendant economic disadvantages." Air. Rafferty closed his medalist address with some reference to the "ever present human problem." He believed that this can be solved by management's developing a "sincere democracy of spirit that radiates mutual respect between the
time, the chemical unit of Carbide had not even built a pilot plant to investigate the problem, of producing this material from alcohol. At the Government's request, however, Carbide and Carbon, under the presidency of Rafferty, speeded up their development and research program on this subject and built and operated two large butadiene plants using its own process, at that time only in a development stage. At the same time, Mr. Haggerson continued, the chemicals unit of Carbide furnished the process engineering and operating experience for a third plant. These three plants produced far in excess of their total rated capacity of 220,000 tons of butadiene a year. At times, the speaker revealed, they attained over 200% of their rated capacities. In the critical year of 1943 they produced 77% of total amount of butadiene made. Rafferty's activities in the atomic energy program, as it involved Union Carbide, were also described in detail by Mr. Haggerson. The most significant phase of this program, he continued, concerned the design, construction, engineering, and operation of the huge gas diffusion plant at Oak Ridge. He concluded this portion of his address with a quotation from a letter of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, wartime head of the atomic energy project. It read: "No one outside the project can ever appreciate how much we depended on you and how well you performed your well-nigh impossible task."
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James A. Rafferty
Industry
Mr. Rafferty devoted a considerable portion of his medalist address to discussion of the future of the chemical industry as a whole. He said, "The advance i;i one lifetime has been so great and the acceleration in recent years has been so rapid that we can be sure that it is a movement which is gaining momentum. After several visits to Europe, during which I had an opportunity to study industries abroad and compare them with our own, I feel sure that the well being and national safety of peoples is in proportion to the success and extent of their industries, of which the chemical industry is an important one." The medalist continued: "It is evident now that the well planned and well executed products of applied science are far superior to the naturally occurring materials which were never designed for the uses to which they were adapted, in the absence of anything better." Mr. Rafferty then pointed out that the word "synthetic" has lost its opprobrium and intelligent chemical buyers now realize that it denotes a material of uniform quality, designed for a particular purpose. "Accordingly," he said, "the chemical industry of tomorrow must feel the responsibility which accompanies the high honor it now has. Products which were once questioned as to acceptance have
manager and the managed." Mr. Rafferty phrased this idea in another way by saying, "We must try to enlist the complete man—his emotional as well as his physical and mental capacities." He said our American chemical industry thus far has benefited tremendously from the enthusiasm of all the pioneers who have been privileged to work in the "stimulating atmosphere of American free enterprise."
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I T might be said that James A. Rafferty, vice president of the Union Carbide and Carbon Co., received the 1948 chemical industry medal for the prominent role he plajred in the inversion of a two-to-one ratio—the one that described the relative productions of aromatic and synthetic aliphatic chemicals in the United States in 1925. A short two decades later, through the ability of Rafferty and his contemporaries in swelling the aliphatic denominator, this ratio was turned upside down, and America had another major industry. The magnitude of this change is all the more startling when it is realized that it took place during that period of time in which the entire organic chemical output of the nation increased twenty fold. Up-ending of established form is not a new experience for Rafferty. During his boyhood in Chicago, where he was born in 1S86, he nurtured an ambition to study and enter the legal profession. He was "six years of Latin and three years of Greek" along the way to this goal when the technical bent in his personality asserted itself and he entered Lewis Institute of Technology to study chemistry and engineering. He graduated from this school in 1908 with a degree in mechanical engineering and major credits in chemistry. Although the emergence of the engineer meant the IOBS of a lawyer enough of the legal penchant for handling human relations and commercial activities remained in Rafferty to equip him handsomely for the many "techecutive" posts he was t o occupy. Graduation from college was followed by nine years of employment by the Peoples Gas, Light and Coke Co. during which time Rafferty rose to the positions of plant superintendent and later superintendent of distribution. In 1947 he left this company to join the Linde Air Products Co., which in the same year became a unit of the Union Carbide and Carbon Co. In one single move Union Carbide had enlarged and gained a future vice president as well.
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From this point on Rafferty's rise in the Carbide organization consisted of a steady advancement from one important Dost to another. Each bore greater responsibilities than that which preceded it but at the same time offered wider scope for Rafferty's optimum blend of technological skill and executive ability. His position as assistant general superintendent of plants of the Linde Company was followed with a general managership of the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corp. when that unit of Union Carbide was formed in 1920. Vice presidencies in this company and the Linde organization came in 1924 and 1925. The year 1929 found Rafferty elected to the presidency of Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Ten years later the Bakélite Corp. had a president named Rafferty and five years after that, in 1944, both the chemicals company and Bakélite had a mutual chairman of their respective boards of directors who bore a remarkable resemblance to a photograph of James A. Bafferty. In recognition of his being "the workhorse of the Carbide backfield" Rafferty was made vice president of the Union Carbide and Carbon Corp., the parent corporation of all Carbide units in 1939. This did little to destroy the idea held by some, however, that over 100 men named James A. Rafferty worked for the company and its many units. For all of the many attractions it holds for him however, the family life of Union Carbide and Carbon and its units must forever play second fiddle to the family life of the Union Rafferty and Rafferty (nee Mary McGough) and its more numerous units. The latter subsidiaries include daughters Rita, Miriam, Hope, and Beth and sons Ward, James, Jr., and nine grandchildren. Economists should note that although URR may look like a corporation it is in reality a partnership— a devoted one of many years' standing that really has two directors named Rafferty.
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