The Tappan Zee Local Section of AIChE was established in 1976 as a special sub-section of the New York Section, covering Rockland and Westchester counties in New York State. Full Section status was obtained in March 1977.
Section’s Purpose
Throughout the history of the Tappan Zee Section and amidst the changing environment of the local industry, the purpose of the section has evolved. The original charter of the Tappan Zee Section stated that “The purposes of the Section, a nonprofit scientific, educational and charitable organization, are the furtherance of the aims and purposes of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the advancement of the science of chemical engineering through (i) the education of members and non-members in the sciences, (ii) career guidance and financial assistance to students of the science, and (iii) encouragement of research in the science. The current Tappan Zee Section activities reflect a broader view of technical issues and member interests.
Founding
In the 1970’s, the Westchester and Rockland areas of New York State was home to several companies having large corporate engineering departments or research and development centers, some employing hundreds of engineers. Stauffer Chemical and Union Carbide played key roles in the founding of the Tappan Zee Section. Other companies were also well represented: General Foods, Ciba-Geigy, Lederle Labs, International Paper and St. Regis Paper.
The founding officers included:
- Mark Carron (Stauffer)
- Alan Zagoria (Union Carbide)
- Thomas Giordano (Stauffer)
- Stephen Taub (Consumers Union)
The significance of Stauffer Chemical and Union Carbide in early development of the section can be seen in the yearly roster of officers. For the first eleven years, 1977 to 1987, over 70 % of the section’s officers came from one of these two companies.
Changes
During the 1980’s and 1990’s, these major companies consolidated, diversified or relocated. Stauffer Chemical exhibits a particularly convoluted story, indicative of the pace of mergers and acquisitions during the 1980’s. Cheseborough-Ponds purchased Stauffer in 1984, and was in turn acquired by Unilever in 1987. Unilever did not want to retain Stauffer and sold it to ICI in 1987. ICI kept the Agricultural Group, sold the Inorganic Chemicals Group to Rhone-Poulenc and sold the Specialty Chemical Group to Akzo-Nobel, who now operates the Dobbs Ferry facility. By 1988, the Stauffer Corporate Engineering staff had been reduced from 300 to 25 and the Research Process Development staff had been reduced from 60 to 25.
Other area companies have undergone their own restructuring. Many of the sites where the initial Tappan Zee Section members worked now have different names than at the founding in 1977. Union Carbide split into several parts including UOP and Praxair. The General Foods facility is now Kraft. The Ciba-Geigy Additives Division is now part of Ciba Specialty Chemicals and the pharmaceutical facility is now part of Novartis. Lederle Labs was bought by Wyeth-Ayerst, who was bought by American Home Products. The St. Regis Paper facility became part of Champion International, which was taken over by International Paper, who closed the W. Nyack facility.
As the local industry changed, the area chemical engineers and section members who formerly worked for these large companies either relocated or found work elsewhere. This has often been in smaller companies, other industries, governmental agencies, consulting engineering firms or as independent consultants. The roster of Tappan Zee Section officers reflects this changing nature of the local chemical industry. Over the eleven years, 1988 to 1998, less than 30 % of the officers came from what would be considered a “traditional” chemical company. Fewer still came from the “descendants” of the founder companies.
Early Activities
Our first section newsletter, titled simply “Newsletter” under the newly designed logo of a bridge under the AIChE shield, was published in March 1978 with Ron Ambrosini as editor. (It wasn’t until the mid-80’s that the newsletter was later named News Columns.) The Chairman of the Section, Alan Zagoria, wrote that, “I expect 1978 to be the year which will show us whether this area can support an active, enthusiastic, and productive local AIChE section.” He envisioned three areas of activity for the section: professional development, improving the relationship between our members and their management, and the interaction between chemical engineers and the outside world.
As part of the agenda to address these concerns, one of our early special events included an annual “Managers’ Luncheon,” where executives of the local companies met with the section officers to discuss issues affecting chemical engineers and their employers in this area. It’s ironic that a section conceived from the idea of holding local monthly dinner meetings should find early success in the form of a lunchtime meeting!
The section newsletter, News Columns, was published bi-monthly and included news from many sources: meeting reviews, announcements of upcoming events, information from National AIChE, and career information including job opportunities. News Columns received the Marx Isaacs Award for Outstanding Newsletter in both 1993 and 1997.
With respect to outreach, The Tappan Zee Section has “adopted” the AIChE student chapter of Manhattan College, first presenting a Career Guidance Seminar in 1983. The section sponsors an annual Career Night with the help of local companies who sponsor the students’ attendance and provide representatives to review and critique résumés and conduct mock interviews. The section has just extended its school involvement to include City College and Columbia University.
The section also participated in the Tri-County Science Fair for high school students in Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland counties by providing judges. The section spearheaded a consortium of engineering societies, Children’s Discovery Center, Westchester Technology Teachers, and Science Teachers of New York State to stage the first Tri-County Science Fair, April 30, 1994 at SUNY Purchase College. The section received the 1995 John C. Heiman Impact Award for Excellence in Education Support, which recognizes outstanding educational initiatives, especially activities to promote pre-college mathematics and science education.
The Tappan Zee Section was a founding member of the Hudson Valley Council of Technical Societies (HVCTS) in July 1994. This is an organization of over 20 technical societies and educational institutions in the mid and lower Hudson Valley within the tri-state area of NY, NJ and CT. The organization’s interests are in networking and education outreach. One of the Tappan Zee Section’s regular joint monthly meetings is a PC workshop presented by the HVCTS. The incoming President of the HVCTS is the Tappan Zee AIChE Past President, Peter Belmonte.
The Tappan Zee Section of AIChE has been on-line since 1997. The current address of its website is located at https://tzaiche.org. The Tappan Zee Section can also be accessed through the AIChE web pages.
Current Activities
Dinner meetings are held regularly, except during the summer. These meetings are sometimes jointly sponsored with other local AIChE sections or with other local technical societies. A broad range of topics is presented covering both specific technical information and also knowledge of a more general nature. Sample meeting topics have included: The Chemistry of Coffee Roasting; Hazardous Waste Incinerator Calculations; DNA Nanotechnology; Project Management; Plastics, Society & Ethics; Manned Flight to Mars; and The Evolution of Chemical Engineering.