Joseph DeSimone began his childhood in Norristown, Pennsylvania, one of three children. His father, an Italian immigrant, was a tailor; his mother was an accountant; there was a large Italian extended family. DeSimone…

George M. Wyman was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1921. Wyman attended the Lutheran Gimnázium in Budapest until World War II threatened, leaving for the United States to become a chemist. Wyman entered Cornell…

Christie G. Enke was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1933. While attending high school, he worked as a stage manager and took electronics classes at Dunwoody Industrial Institute (now Dunwoody College of Technology).…

Peter DeCarlo grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana, the second of three children. His father is a professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University, and his mother is a kindergarten teacher. Both sisters also have…

Annette Campbell-White was born and raised in New Zealand, but due to her father’s job as a mining engineer, she attended university in South Africa. She studied engineering, but not seeing a career path in the…

Robert Carpenter was born in San Diego, California, in 1945. He moved to South Bend, Indiana, where his father started a family bakery when he was an infant. When Carpenter was in elementary school, the family moved to…

Alison Taunton-Rigby was born and educated in Great Britain. Her father was a scientist for the British government and her mother was a physiotherapist. She attended the University of Bristol for her undergraduate and…

Franklin Pass was born in Deluth, Minnesota. His father, a lawyer, died when Pass was twelve years old, after which his family moved to Minneapolis. He attended the University of Minnesota and graduated from medical…

Peter Drake was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was the head of manufacturing for Beech Aircraft before he became one of the founders of McDonnell Aircraft. Drake attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine,…

Jean H. Futrell was born in Grant Parish, Louisiana. He majored in chemical engineering at Louisiana Tech University, and also enrolled in the Air Force ROTC. Futrell attended the University of California at Berkeley…

Rolf Dessauer (1926-2024) was born in Nuremberg, Germany, one of two sons of a physician and a housewife. His family fled to the United States after Kristallnacht, eventually settling in Flushing, New York. After…

Garren Bohlin was a partner at Arthur Anderson LLP in 1980, where he did general business consulting. He was contacted by Mirza Mehdi of the Genetics Institute, who worked with Gabriel Schmergel. Mehdi asked Bohlin if…

Gabriel Schmergel was born in 1940 in Budapest, Hungary. He immigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen shortly after the Soviet Union defeated the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. His parents worked manual labor…

Esther Takeuchi grew up in Akron, Ohio, the youngest of three children. After escaping Soviet Latvia, her father became an electrical engineer for Goodyear Aerospace and her mother a home health worker who also had an…

Franz Hillenkamp was born in Essen, Germany. Having chosen the science and math track in the Gymnasium Hillenkamp went on to major in electrical engineering at Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM). He interrupted his…

Constantine E. Anagnostopoulos was born in Turkey in 1922 to parents of Greek descent. Due to Turkish expulsion of the Greeks when he was three months old, the family left for the Greek mainland. Because his father was…

John Crowley was born and raised in northern New Jersey. His father was a cop who died on duty when Crowley was seven years old. Later in his life, Crowley attended business school and became a consultant, moving to San…

Catherine Fenselau grew up in York, Nebraska. Always interested in science, first archaeology and ultimately chemistry, she attended Bryn Mawr College. The chairman of the chemistry department, Ernst Berliner, became…

Penelope Fenner-Crisp grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of two children. Her father changed jobs frequently; her mother was a housewife until Fenner-Crisp was nearly through high school. The family all…

Mary K. Gall matriculated at Vassar College. Originally she was interesed in bacteriology, but she decided to major in chemistry. She felt she did not have enough 'drive' for medical school, and she always wanted to be…

James A. McCloskey, Jr., grew up in San Antonio, Texas. He entered Trinity University in San Antonio, where he majored in chemistry; he earned a PhD in analytical chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.…

Cam Garner grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. His father was diagnosed with cancer when Garner was a child, and later died when he was seventeen years old. Garner struggled academically in grade school, though became…

This oral history is one in a series that looks at the history of the Toxic Substances Control Act from the perspectives of the individuals involved in its creation, implementation, and execution.

Don R. Clay received…

Darleane (Christian) Hoffman was born in Terril, Iowa, one of two children. She grew up "all over" Iowa as her father was a public school superintendent who soon moved to Coon Rapids and then to West Union. Her mother,…

Jean S. Kane grew up mostly in Tenafly, New Jersey. Although her father was an accountant, Jean was the first in her family to attend college. She began at Keuka College, intending to get a nursing degree, but she…