Jean B. Cropley

Retired, Union Carbide — Scott Depot

Jean B. Cropley is a native of Denver, Colorado, and was educated in the Denver Public schools and at the University of Colorado, where he received BS and MS degrees in chemical engineering in 1953 and 1958. He first joined Union Carbide in South Charleston, upon graduation in 1953, but left for service with the U.S. Navy almost immediately. Upon his discharge in 1956, he returned to the University of Colorado for graduate work and finally rejoined Union Carbide in South Charleston in October 1957. Cropley and his wife, Helen, were married in April 1957. They live in Scott Depot.

His entire professional career was spent with Union Carbide in the research and development department, and spanned a total of more than 40 years from 1953 until his retirement in 1993. A specialist in real-process chemical reaction engineering and reactor design from the 1960's on, Cropley was an in-house consultant to most of the chemical processes in the corporation for many years. He was appointed a corporate fellow of Union Carbide Corporation in 1988.

Cropley has worked with and supported the Department of Chemical Engineering at WVU for many years. He has served as a member of a number of graduate committees and has given talks and seminars on chemical reaction engineering. In 1984, he was appointed as Union Carbide corporation’s representative to the advisory board for the West Virginia University/NSF Fluidization Research Center. He became chairman of the advisory board in 1986.

When he retired, WVU and Union Carbide honored both Cropley and Dick Bannister, another Union Carbide Corporate Fellow with long ties to WVU, by establishing two annual Distinguished Seminars in their names. Both of these seminars continue to the present time and are presented each year as part of the chemical engineering graduate seminar series.

Cropley is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and a member of Sigma Xi and the American Chemical Society.