$6 million gift benefits engineering, athletics (Smith)
As president and chief executive officer of Lyondell Chemical Co., Dan F. Smith ’69 supported Lamar’s chemical engineering department through scholarships and saw that his company proved a leader in providing internship opportunities for promising students. He considers his own co-op experiences while a student at Lamar a valuable tool that enabled him to gain first-hand application of the concepts and practices he was learning in the classroom.
Beginning now, current and future students will develop their own prowess in the Dan F. Smith Department of Chemical Engineering. The department will bear Smith’s name in recognition of a $5 million gift from Dan and Sandra Smith to the College of Engineering, President James Simmons announced to an appreciative crowd gathered in the Cherry Engineering Building March 19.
Among those in attendance were their daughter, Brooke Lenker; her husband, Matt; and their children, Ethan, Charles and Abigail Kate, of Kingwood. The Smiths’ son, Andrew, and his wife, Lindsay, of Van Nuys, Calif., were unable to attend.
The couple gave an additional $1 million gift to the university to assist in the return of football to Lamar (see sidebar story). The combined $6 million gift adds significantly to the university’s Investing in the Future $100 million campaign, which has now reached the $54 million mark. Smith serves as a member of the university’s campaign cabinet.
“I’ve seen the department come a long way over the past few years under the current leadership both at the college and university level,” said Smith, who serves on the College of Engineering Advisory Council. “I’d like to see them continue to excel. I hope to help in that regard with the gift.”
“I got my start in business with the degree I earned at Lamar,” Smith said, “and I wanted to be sure that opportunity was there for future generations.”
Smith served as president, CEO and chairman of Lyondell from 1996 to January 2008 when Lyondell Chemical Co. became a subsidiary of LyondellBasell Industries AF S.C.A. Before the merger, Lyondell was North America’s third-largest, independent, publicly traded chemicalcompany and a global leader in the manufacture of chemicals and polymers. At the time of the sale, Lyondell’s combined assets totaled approximately $20 billion with sales of more than $30 billion annually.
Unfortunately, the new owners sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2009 for its U.S. operations and for Basell Germany Holdings GmbH, one of its European holding companies, amid a heavy debt load and plunging sales. Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to restructure debt and continue operations.
During Smith’s tenure at the helm of Lyondell, the company was recognized in 2007 by The Princeton Review as one of the nation’s best companies for college graduates to begin their careers. Entry-level employees are integrated quickly into essential and important projects thus providing exciting challenges for young minds.
When Smith retired from Lyondell, he accepted a position as chairman of the board of directors for Kraton Polymers LLC. a private company owned by two equity firms. Kraton polymers are used in a wide range of applications including adhesives, coatings, consumer and personal care products, sealants, lubricants, medical, packaging, automotive, paving, roofing and footwear products. Kraton production facilities are located in the United States, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Brazil and Japan.
“I’ve been doing that over the course of the last year and three months,” Smith said. “At the same time I’ve been looking at other opportunities in the investment world, including the possibility of running another company, but I haven’t found what I’m looking for yet.”
Lyondell provided funding support for the Advanced Process Control Lab that is now a part of the curriculum for chemical engineering majors. In the lab, Lamar instructors can recreate the control room environment of a chemical processing plant to provide hands-on experience without ever leaving the classroom. Students gain experience monitoring the functions of the control room and get practice in solving problems that will occur. With this equipment, instructors can program specific types of process failures, which the students must recognize and resolve.
“We can simulate a chemical process plant’s control-room environment, including those dynamic interactions, without the actual facility,” said Peyton Richmond, associate professor in the chemical engineering department at Lamar. “Those operator consoles are central to operating any type of chemical facility.”
The Dan F. Smith Department of Chemical Engineering offers the Bachelor of Science degree, two options for the Master of Science degree, the Doctor of Engineering degree, and in 2007 graduated Lamar’s first Ph.D. student in the new doctoral program in chemical engineering. The program was ranked first in the nation in 2006 for the total number of master’s degree graduates and second in the nation in 2007.
“Dan Smith has been a long-time huge supporter of the College of Engineering in many ways,” said Jack Hopper, dean of the college. “This generous endowment will provide the opportunity to make great strides in the intellectual capacity and cutting-edge research in the chemical engineering department. This gift will give the department a high profile across the nation because of the name recognition of Dan Smith.”
View from the Press Box
Crowds of exuberant fans at Cardinal Football games will cheer on the Red and White on the W.S. “Bud” Leonard Field … overhead, legions of sports reporters will gather the latest stats, analyze the strategies and capture spectacular highlights in the Dan F. and Sandra A. Smith Press Box in the newly named Provost-Umphrey Stadium.
The genesis of the $1 million gift toward football was a conversation where President Simmons “brought me up to date on what was going on with football and campus life,” Dan Smith said.
“My wife and I dated for a short period of time before we became engaged and that was during basketball season, and we made good use of those student passes,” Smith said. “For poor students like us that was our date.”
While the sport is different, making the connection is a slam dunk. Enjoying athletics together became a part of their shared college experience and one they would always treasure, he said. “Earl Dow played on the team that year, and they beat the University of Houston (71-65 in overtime) after UH had beat UCLA. So that was a pretty neat year.”
“If you’re missing out on sports then you’re probably missing out on some students you could recruit who are looking for that as a part of student life,” Smith said. Not having a football team has created “a hole since we discontinued it.”
“Students will really enjoy having football as a part of student life,” Smith said.
