You're not far from home then, in Michigan...
No, but I ended up here in a roundabout way. I spent time in the Army back in the days when people were drafted. I was in Baltimore for a couple of years, then with Allied Chemical in Virginia for a few more years, then made my way up here.

How did you end up at GM R&D?
I've been working in research forever. My first job was at Wright Patterson Air Force Base making a high-temperature polymer material that was to be the heat shield on the bottom of the Mercury spacecraft. At Allied Chemical, I worked on several different kinds of polymers. Later I saw an ad in Chemical and Engineering News for GM R&D's Polymers Department. I'm car-oriented, so I answered the ad, got the job, and started working on automotive-type polymers.

Polymers seem to figure heavily in your story...
I realized that I wanted to work with them - actually plastics - when I was 12. Even at that age I knew I definitely wanted to study chemistry. And when my plastic model airplane melted while sitting on a hot air register, I felt there was a real need for better materials.

What were your early assignments at R&D?
I worked on the mechanism of toughening thermoplastics for impact resistance.

How did that lead to working on composites?
We turned the thermoplastic into a composite by adding glass fiber. I've been working with many forms of composites since that time, looking at their material properties. We have the capability to change the fiber, the matrix, and the fiber/matrix interface, and see the effect on the overall composite's properties. That's been our main focus.

There are different ways of processing composites too - like injection molding or compression molding. Now we're into Reaction Injection Molding (RIM). I work mostly with structural RIM (SRIM), the fiber-reinforced version. In fact, SRIM forms the structural part of the composite truck box.

What was your contribution to the composite truck box?
I studied the long-term durability of the basic composite material itself. That relates to my work with the Automotive Composites Consortium (ACC). One of the first things that bubbled up when the three major automotive companies started working together in the Consortium is that we didn't know as much as we should about long-term durability characteristics of some of these materials. Through the Consortium, we initiated an ongoing program with Oak Ridge National Lab. Since 1994, they've been doing extensive durability testing on automotive composite materials.

We've brought information developed at Oak Ridge to bear on the GM truck box to ensure that the materials we put on the road have 15-year durability. We can run tests that only take a couple of years, but still provide solid information about durability over 15 years.

Do you accelerate the materials' tests?
We extrapolate from a real-time database of a couple of years. There is an extensive body of scientific research in durability areas like fatigue and creep. From that research, material behavioral models have been established. By combining our real-time data with the behavioral models, we can fairly confidently extrapolate to the 15-year time frame.

What are you working on now?
The largest portion of my time is spent working on ACC projects. We have a project to design and build an all-carbon composite body-in-white. The goal is 60-percent mass reduction compared to the equivalent steel body structure. Again, I'm looking at this from the materials point of view, helping to choose the right material for the body structure.

What excites you about your research?
Everything we do is new and on the front edge. We're working on an automotive-style composite that has more carbon fiber content and is molded thinner than ever before. We're trying to find ways to do it - and to do it quickly!

You've listed thermoplastic impact toughening as your proudest accomplishment. Why?
That was very much on the front edge. Our findings went contrary to the prevailing theory at the time. Even today we find bits and pieces of that work trickling into some of the thinking on impact-modified thermoplastics. And the work was 20 years ago.

Most people working with GM and ACC seem to split their time between the two organizations. What's a typical week like for you?
When I'm at GM, I spend a lot of time laying out test programs, analyzing data, and preparing presentations. Working at ACC means that I get up early, go to USCAR in Southfield, and meet with people from Ford and DaimlerChrysler or the University of Michigan or material suppliers. That's a very different day, usually about once each week.

What's it like working with your counterparts at other automotive companies?
These people have become our friends and associates, but initially it was a culture shock. USCAR has grown up and we meet at their facility now. But in the early days of the ACC, we met at the individual companies. I got to the point where I could walk in the front door of the Ford Scientific Research Lab and right down the hall with GM badges hanging all over me. So much for security, I guess.

What are your other research interests?
Composites is it. If you look at composites, they incorporate the processing of materials, the chemistry of the matrix, the nature of the fiber - it takes all of that to make a composite. Even the fibers themselves require a coating to make them stick to the matrix. All these things call for different forms of science and technology. So when you say composites, you're talking about many, many fields wrapped up in one.

What do you do when you're not working?
My wife and I like to walk. I also enjoy auto racing as a spectator. And I do a lot of reading, especially archaeology and anthropology. From the time I was a kid, the pre-Columbian Indians of the American Southwest, like the Anasazi and the Hohokam, have fascinated me.

And you enjoy visiting the Southwest for vacations too ...
Yes, for the same reason.

Do you go on digs?
Not yet, but I have a few places lined up. I'm looking forward to getting out there playing in the dirt. There are a couple of anthropology courses at the University of Arizona I'd like to get into as well - it all sounds like fun to me.