A Material Scientist's Memoir: Recollections and Advice

By Harry S. Katz

In this short, compelling memoir that will appeal to both general readers and fellow scientists, Harry S. Katz offers recollections and lessons learned from more than eight decades of life. In evocative snapshots, he describes early struggles to overcome a severe speech problem; lifelong attempts to develop technical expertise and creativity in his specialty area of materials science; his Army service during World War II; and six decades of marriage with his Holocaust-survivor wife, Toby, who at one point served three four-year terms on their local town council. From the perspective of someone who started two small businesses in different plastics-related fields, Katz discusses a few of the most memorable projects that he worked on, and provides suggestions for making the future use of plastics safer and healthier for human health and the environment. Katz, who is a checkers and chess expert, also discusses why he believes these kinds of challenging and creative activities are crucial for keeping a persons mind sharp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483646763

Harry S. Katz

Harry S. Katz is an inventor, materials scientist, small businessman, World War II Army veteran, husband of a Holocaust survivor, and expert chess and checkers player. He has co-edited two previously published technical books, Handbook of Fillers in Plastics, and Handbook of Reinforcements in Plastics. He is also an elected Fellow of The Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE), and of the Society of Plastics Engineers.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

T HIS BOOK IS a kind of memoir, or an autobiography written in different snapshot-recollections from my life. In writing this book, I hope that readers will find aspects of my personal history interesting, and that certain parts of the book might even help some readers make more positive choices in particular decisions they may face in the future, both in terms of practical achievements and personal happiness. In this volume, readers will see how I, an ordinary guy in his late 80s—who grew up with poor, but dedicated parents who struggled to earn a living for their four children—have been able to overcome some obstacles and barriers to achieve some personal and professional results that did not seem remotely possible in my younger years. Because time can pass by very quickly, I hope that readers will find enough interesting or educational material in this book to come away feeling that the time spent reading it was worthwhile.

Some years ago, there was a popular book entitled, Life begins at 40. For many years, I had the thought that I wanted to write a book about my life experiences. When I recently made the decision to undertake this task, I thought that I might pick the title, Life Begins at 80. However, I concluded that this was not a good title, because life can really begin, or have a new beginning, whenever an individual makes a firm decision that now will be the start of trying to solve problems that life places before each of us.

I have spent most of my professional life as a scientist, working in the fields of plastics and composite materials. After working on the staff of several large companies, several decades ago I branched out to start several of my own small businesses, which began very slowly. Eventually, I began to make a decent living from these small businesses, and in my elderly years, I have had some modest financial success. In these small businesses, I have had help from many terrific colleagues—two that deserve particular thanks are Jim Wittig, who helped me build up Rad-Cure Corporation, and Dr. Radha Agarwal, who has worked with me for 25 years at Utility Development Corporation. In terms of professional accomplishments, I have edited two technical Handbooks in my field of plastics and composite materials that have been widely used by engineers and researchers throughout the world. I have also written a number of articles and chapters for technical books and periodicals. In May 2001, I was elected as a Fellow of The Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE), an international organization of engineers that are mainly involved with aerospace companies. In my professional field, an honor like this is somewhat akin to winning a Nobel Prize, although there is no money given as part of the award. I have also been elected a Fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers. And I have been granted 13 U.S. patents on products that I have invented or co-invented, some of which will be discussed in this book.

In my personal life, I have been married to the same woman for almost 60 years. I am proud that, in spite of the fact that my wife, Toby, was forced to go through the trauma of surviving several Nazi concentration camps, and losing her parents and five brothers and sisters in Auschwitz, she has been actively involved in social services for our community of West Orange, New Jersey. I am grateful to have had the chance to have played an invisible, but important, role in helping Toby win several hard-fought local political campaigns, where she was elected to serve three four-year terms on the West Orange town council—with her distinguished public service later being recognized by the town’s naming a small recreational building after her: The Councilwoman Toby Katz Community Center.

The local elections that Toby won required her to take part in many debates and public forums, and Toby won her three elections running against male lawyers with far more formal training in debating and public-speaking. Despite her disadvantages in terms of education and training, my wife, with a Hungarian accent and without any high-school or college degree, was able to win these three elections. During one of her four-year terms, she even served as President of the Township Council. She did lose twice before winning those three times, and she was cautioned after those losses by many of her friends that she simply could not win, so that her subsequent electoral victories—as well as her very survival of the concentration camps—help to prove the importance of perseverance. Together, we raised a son who has received a Ph.D. in English, and is a widely published poet. Other friends and relatives will also be mentioned later in this volume.

In my life, I have always tried to be a creative person. In my professional work, I have tried to express this creativity through inventions and through resourceful problem-solving. In my youth, I was interested in literature, and one novel feature of this book is that I have started some chapters with a recollection of a poem or a literary quote. As a young person, I was also interested in the games of checkers and chess, and those interests have continued through my adulthood. I still play chess one night each week at our local town club, in the recreational building named after my wife, and I have recently given a checkers exhibition, including a match played blindfolded, that readers can view on YouTube (as Checkers Exhibition by Katz).

Although I have learned how to play checkers without looking at the board, I am writing this memoir with my eyes and my memory as open as possible.

CHAPTER 2

The Battle with My Voice

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returneth,

Was not spoken of the soul.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O F ALL MY personal and professional accomplishments, I consider my success in overcoming a serious voice and speaking problem to be one of my most important life achievements. I know there are many individuals who have a fear of public speaking. I sincerely hope that this chapter will help put them at ease when faced with an occasion when they would like to express a thought or opinion to a small, or even to a large, audience. I know that those individuals with a fear of public speaking would welcome the chance to be at ease when a situation makes it desirable to express an opinion. I must caution the reader that I have no academic background as a speech therapist and no special knowledge of the medical details of speech anatomy, but I will discuss my practical experience of how I overcame a severe handicap in this area, and I hope that my suggestions will prove useful to others.

During life, every alert individual faces many challenges to overcome in order to survive and to continue meeting one’s personal obligations to those we love and respect. It is important to realize and prioritize these problems, in order to give the appropriate time and effort needed to solve them.

Luke Corbett—an inspirational teacher that I had in grade school where I grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania—made his class memorize words of wisdom. Among the things he asked us to remember, which I have kept in mind throughout my life, was his definition of initiative: "Initiative is that characteristic of a human being that makes him automatically search for