Wendell E. Dunn, Jr., arguably South Dakota's most prolific inventor, died in Tucson, Ariz., on Dec. 24, 2007. He was 85 years-old. A widower, Dr. Dunn had resided in Spearfish and the Black Hills area for nearly 35 years.
Born in Baltimore Md., in 1922, he was the first son of educators Wendell E. Dunn, originally of South Dakota, and Edythe H. Dunn of Baltimore. Their young family lived in South Dakota for 11 years from the mid-1920s, returning to Baltimore in the midst of the Great Depression.
A graduate of Baltimore City College, Wendell Jr. was awarded a degree in chemical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in early 1943, thereafter serving to Captain with the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1946. After completing the Harvard/MIT V12 program in 1944, he was engaged in aircraft terrain avoidance radar research in both the U.S. and Occupied Germany. It was during his time at Cambridge that he met his wife of 48 years, Lillian (Billie), a gifted organist, who predeceased him in 1992.
He was repatriated in 1946, returning to his young family and his studies, earning a doctorate at Hopkins in 1950, soon after joining E.I. DuPont de Nemours in Wilmington, Del. He was a key member of the research and development team which perfected DuPont's process for the production of high-purity titanium dioxide as a paint pigment and received his first sole-inventor U.S. patent in 1954. He remained with the firm for 19 years during which time its process grew to become the dominant technology worldwide.
In 1968 he left DuPont to form his own contract research and development firm in Delaware and Sydney, Australia. He worked closely for several years with major Australian mining house Peko-Wallsend Limited to develop a technology to produce a low-cost titanium process feedstock. Thereafter he returned to his boyhood home and, for the next three decades, continued from the Black Hills his signature contributions to the field of high-temperature chlorination of metal ores.
Between 1975 and 1995 he consulted to a variety of international corporations such as Reynolds Metals, Kerr-McGee and DuPont, among others - and performed R&D which formed the bases for several start-up ventures in South Dakota and beyond. He worked with the Lien Brothers and others in the Rapid City area to develop processes for the extraction from ore of ultra-pure niobium and tantalum metals for use in electronic applications, and for the efficient separation and recovery of gold from low-grade ore and scrap.
From the late-1980s until the late-1990s he joined with European and Asian interests to develop a process for low-cost titanium-based pigments, working in India for months at a time. Throughout much of this period, he was also an active adjunct faculty member at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Dr. Dunn continued to consult and invent until late 2005 after which failing health limited his activities. In addition to multiple recognitions by DuPont, he was issued during his lifetime nearly 100 U.S. and international patents. While at least one new patent application remained incomplete at the time of his death, several of his inventions were still actively in use in the U.S., Mexico, India and elsewhere.
He was known widely for his quick, sharp wit, a fondness for deep technical or philosophic discourse, and his generosity - he gifted the carillon at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He was a "soft touch" for any in need, whether a battered woman or the local volunteer fire department - whose station sits on his donated land. He is best remembered by his children as an extraordinary bedtime storyteller whose fantastic tales had few equals in print. His one non-technical book, The Sex Tax, a political fantasy first published in 1979, has proven popular with a variety of readers.
During his years in Delaware, Dr. Dunn was an active private pilot and aircraft owner and, throughout his life, as time permitted, an avid fly fisherman. His early morning treks to the creek at the bottom of his "compound" in beautiful Spearfish Canyon were rewarded, more often than not, with a creel full of brown trout - a unique breakfast treat for any lucky enough to be his and Billie's guests.
Dr. Dunn is survived by his brother, Thomas B. Dunn of Bloomington, Ind.; four children, Wendell E. Dunn III of Auckland, New Zealand; Pamela Dunn Lehrer of New York City; Shelley Dunn Carda of Tucson, Ariz., (formerly of Piedmont) and Edythe ("Dee") Dunn Randolph of Virginia; one grandchild, Elissa B. Dunn, also of Auckland.
Cremation has taken place. Interment of ashes will be in his and Billie's families' historical plots. There will be a memorial Requiem Mass at Immaculate Conception Church, located at Fifth and South Streets, in Rapid City, on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008. Donations in memoriam may be made to the "Wendell E. Dunn Jr. Memorial Fund," in care of the SDSM&T Foundation, 501 East Saint Joseph St., Rapid City, SD, 57701.
Black Hills Pioneer January 09, 2008
Born in Baltimore Md., in 1922, he was the first son of educators Wendell E. Dunn, originally of South Dakota, and Edythe H. Dunn of Baltimore. Their young family lived in South Dakota for 11 years from the mid-1920s, returning to Baltimore in the midst of the Great Depression.
A graduate of Baltimore City College, Wendell Jr. was awarded a degree in chemical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in early 1943, thereafter serving to Captain with the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1946. After completing the Harvard/MIT V12 program in 1944, he was engaged in aircraft terrain avoidance radar research in both the U.S. and Occupied Germany. It was during his time at Cambridge that he met his wife of 48 years, Lillian (Billie), a gifted organist, who predeceased him in 1992.
He was repatriated in 1946, returning to his young family and his studies, earning a doctorate at Hopkins in 1950, soon after joining E.I. DuPont de Nemours in Wilmington, Del. He was a key member of the research and development team which perfected DuPont's process for the production of high-purity titanium dioxide as a paint pigment and received his first sole-inventor U.S. patent in 1954. He remained with the firm for 19 years during which time its process grew to become the dominant technology worldwide.
In 1968 he left DuPont to form his own contract research and development firm in Delaware and Sydney, Australia. He worked closely for several years with major Australian mining house Peko-Wallsend Limited to develop a technology to produce a low-cost titanium process feedstock. Thereafter he returned to his boyhood home and, for the next three decades, continued from the Black Hills his signature contributions to the field of high-temperature chlorination of metal ores.
Between 1975 and 1995 he consulted to a variety of international corporations such as Reynolds Metals, Kerr-McGee and DuPont, among others - and performed R&D which formed the bases for several start-up ventures in South Dakota and beyond. He worked with the Lien Brothers and others in the Rapid City area to develop processes for the extraction from ore of ultra-pure niobium and tantalum metals for use in electronic applications, and for the efficient separation and recovery of gold from low-grade ore and scrap.
From the late-1980s until the late-1990s he joined with European and Asian interests to develop a process for low-cost titanium-based pigments, working in India for months at a time. Throughout much of this period, he was also an active adjunct faculty member at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Dr. Dunn continued to consult and invent until late 2005 after which failing health limited his activities. In addition to multiple recognitions by DuPont, he was issued during his lifetime nearly 100 U.S. and international patents. While at least one new patent application remained incomplete at the time of his death, several of his inventions were still actively in use in the U.S., Mexico, India and elsewhere.
He was known widely for his quick, sharp wit, a fondness for deep technical or philosophic discourse, and his generosity - he gifted the carillon at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He was a "soft touch" for any in need, whether a battered woman or the local volunteer fire department - whose station sits on his donated land. He is best remembered by his children as an extraordinary bedtime storyteller whose fantastic tales had few equals in print. His one non-technical book, The Sex Tax, a political fantasy first published in 1979, has proven popular with a variety of readers.
During his years in Delaware, Dr. Dunn was an active private pilot and aircraft owner and, throughout his life, as time permitted, an avid fly fisherman. His early morning treks to the creek at the bottom of his "compound" in beautiful Spearfish Canyon were rewarded, more often than not, with a creel full of brown trout - a unique breakfast treat for any lucky enough to be his and Billie's guests.
Dr. Dunn is survived by his brother, Thomas B. Dunn of Bloomington, Ind.; four children, Wendell E. Dunn III of Auckland, New Zealand; Pamela Dunn Lehrer of New York City; Shelley Dunn Carda of Tucson, Ariz., (formerly of Piedmont) and Edythe ("Dee") Dunn Randolph of Virginia; one grandchild, Elissa B. Dunn, also of Auckland.
Cremation has taken place. Interment of ashes will be in his and Billie's families' historical plots. There will be a memorial Requiem Mass at Immaculate Conception Church, located at Fifth and South Streets, in Rapid City, on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008. Donations in memoriam may be made to the "Wendell E. Dunn Jr. Memorial Fund," in care of the SDSM&T Foundation, 501 East Saint Joseph St., Rapid City, SD, 57701.
Black Hills Pioneer January 09, 2008
Wendell E. Dunn, Jr., arguably South Dakota's most prolific inventor, died in Tucson, Ariz., on Dec. 24, 2007. He was 85 years-old. A widower, Dr. Dunn had resided in Spearfish and the Black Hills area for nearly 35 years.
Born in Baltimore Md., in 1922, he was the first son of educators Wendell E. Dunn, originally of South Dakota, and Edythe H. Dunn of Baltimore. Their young family lived in South Dakota for 11 years from the mid-1920s, returning to Baltimore in the midst of the Great Depression.
A graduate of Baltimore City College, Wendell Jr. was awarded a degree in chemical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in early 1943, thereafter serving to Captain with the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1946. After completing the Harvard/MIT V12 program in 1944, he was engaged in aircraft terrain avoidance radar research in both the U.S. and Occupied Germany. It was during his time at Cambridge that he met his wife of 48 years, Lillian (Billie), a gifted organist, who predeceased him in 1992.
He was repatriated in 1946, returning to his young family and his studies, earning a doctorate at Hopkins in 1950, soon after joining E.I. DuPont de Nemours in Wilmington, Del. He was a key member of the research and development team which perfected DuPont's process for the production of high-purity titanium dioxide as a paint pigment and received his first sole-inventor U.S. patent in 1954. He remained with the firm for 19 years during which time its process grew to become the dominant technology worldwide.
In 1968 he left DuPont to form his own contract research and development firm in Delaware and Sydney, Australia. He worked closely for several years with major Australian mining house Peko-Wallsend Limited to develop a technology to produce a low-cost titanium process feedstock. Thereafter he returned to his boyhood home and, for the next three decades, continued from the Black Hills his signature contributions to the field of high-temperature chlorination of metal ores.
Between 1975 and 1995 he consulted to a variety of international corporations such as Reynolds Metals, Kerr-McGee and DuPont, among others - and performed R&D which formed the bases for several start-up ventures in South Dakota and beyond. He worked with the Lien Brothers and others in the Rapid City area to develop processes for the extraction from ore of ultra-pure niobium and tantalum metals for use in electronic applications, and for the efficient separation and recovery of gold from low-grade ore and scrap.
From the late-1980s until the late-1990s he joined with European and Asian interests to develop a process for low-cost titanium-based pigments, working in India for months at a time. Throughout much of this period, he was also an active adjunct faculty member at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Dr. Dunn continued to consult and invent until late 2005 after which failing health limited his activities. In addition to multiple recognitions by DuPont, he was issued during his lifetime nearly 100 U.S. and international patents. While at least one new patent application remained incomplete at the time of his death, several of his inventions were still actively in use in the U.S., Mexico, India and elsewhere.
He was known widely for his quick, sharp wit, a fondness for deep technical or philosophic discourse, and his generosity - he gifted the carillon at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He was a "soft touch" for any in need, whether a battered woman or the local volunteer fire department - whose station sits on his donated land. He is best remembered by his children as an extraordinary bedtime storyteller whose fantastic tales had few equals in print. His one non-technical book, The Sex Tax, a political fantasy first published in 1979, has proven popular with a variety of readers.
During his years in Delaware, Dr. Dunn was an active private pilot and aircraft owner and, throughout his life, as time permitted, an avid fly fisherman. His early morning treks to the creek at the bottom of his "compound" in beautiful Spearfish Canyon were rewarded, more often than not, with a creel full of brown trout - a unique breakfast treat for any lucky enough to be his and Billie's guests.
Dr. Dunn is survived by his brother, Thomas B. Dunn of Bloomington, Ind.; four children, Wendell E. Dunn III of Auckland, New Zealand; Pamela Dunn Lehrer of New York City; Shelley Dunn Carda of Tucson, Ariz., (formerly of Piedmont) and Edythe ("Dee") Dunn Randolph of Virginia; one grandchild, Elissa B. Dunn, also of Auckland.
Cremation has taken place. Interment of ashes will be in his and Billie's families' historical plots. There will be a memorial Requiem Mass at Immaculate Conception Church, located at Fifth and South Streets, in Rapid City, on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008. Donations in memoriam may be made to the "Wendell E. Dunn Jr. Memorial Fund," in care of the SDSM&T Foundation, 501 East Saint Joseph St., Rapid City, SD, 57701.
Black Hills Pioneer January 09, 2008
Born in Baltimore Md., in 1922, he was the first son of educators Wendell E. Dunn, originally of South Dakota, and Edythe H. Dunn of Baltimore. Their young family lived in South Dakota for 11 years from the mid-1920s, returning to Baltimore in the midst of the Great Depression.
A graduate of Baltimore City College, Wendell Jr. was awarded a degree in chemical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in early 1943, thereafter serving to Captain with the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1946. After completing the Harvard/MIT V12 program in 1944, he was engaged in aircraft terrain avoidance radar research in both the U.S. and Occupied Germany. It was during his time at Cambridge that he met his wife of 48 years, Lillian (Billie), a gifted organist, who predeceased him in 1992.
He was repatriated in 1946, returning to his young family and his studies, earning a doctorate at Hopkins in 1950, soon after joining E.I. DuPont de Nemours in Wilmington, Del. He was a key member of the research and development team which perfected DuPont's process for the production of high-purity titanium dioxide as a paint pigment and received his first sole-inventor U.S. patent in 1954. He remained with the firm for 19 years during which time its process grew to become the dominant technology worldwide.
In 1968 he left DuPont to form his own contract research and development firm in Delaware and Sydney, Australia. He worked closely for several years with major Australian mining house Peko-Wallsend Limited to develop a technology to produce a low-cost titanium process feedstock. Thereafter he returned to his boyhood home and, for the next three decades, continued from the Black Hills his signature contributions to the field of high-temperature chlorination of metal ores.
Between 1975 and 1995 he consulted to a variety of international corporations such as Reynolds Metals, Kerr-McGee and DuPont, among others - and performed R&D which formed the bases for several start-up ventures in South Dakota and beyond. He worked with the Lien Brothers and others in the Rapid City area to develop processes for the extraction from ore of ultra-pure niobium and tantalum metals for use in electronic applications, and for the efficient separation and recovery of gold from low-grade ore and scrap.
From the late-1980s until the late-1990s he joined with European and Asian interests to develop a process for low-cost titanium-based pigments, working in India for months at a time. Throughout much of this period, he was also an active adjunct faculty member at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Dr. Dunn continued to consult and invent until late 2005 after which failing health limited his activities. In addition to multiple recognitions by DuPont, he was issued during his lifetime nearly 100 U.S. and international patents. While at least one new patent application remained incomplete at the time of his death, several of his inventions were still actively in use in the U.S., Mexico, India and elsewhere.
He was known widely for his quick, sharp wit, a fondness for deep technical or philosophic discourse, and his generosity - he gifted the carillon at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He was a "soft touch" for any in need, whether a battered woman or the local volunteer fire department - whose station sits on his donated land. He is best remembered by his children as an extraordinary bedtime storyteller whose fantastic tales had few equals in print. His one non-technical book, The Sex Tax, a political fantasy first published in 1979, has proven popular with a variety of readers.
During his years in Delaware, Dr. Dunn was an active private pilot and aircraft owner and, throughout his life, as time permitted, an avid fly fisherman. His early morning treks to the creek at the bottom of his "compound" in beautiful Spearfish Canyon were rewarded, more often than not, with a creel full of brown trout - a unique breakfast treat for any lucky enough to be his and Billie's guests.
Dr. Dunn is survived by his brother, Thomas B. Dunn of Bloomington, Ind.; four children, Wendell E. Dunn III of Auckland, New Zealand; Pamela Dunn Lehrer of New York City; Shelley Dunn Carda of Tucson, Ariz., (formerly of Piedmont) and Edythe ("Dee") Dunn Randolph of Virginia; one grandchild, Elissa B. Dunn, also of Auckland.
Cremation has taken place. Interment of ashes will be in his and Billie's families' historical plots. There will be a memorial Requiem Mass at Immaculate Conception Church, located at Fifth and South Streets, in Rapid City, on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008. Donations in memoriam may be made to the "Wendell E. Dunn Jr. Memorial Fund," in care of the SDSM&T Foundation, 501 East Saint Joseph St., Rapid City, SD, 57701.
Black Hills Pioneer January 09, 2008
Bio by: In memory of Scott
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
