Joseph Glas

After graduating from Illinois with his doctorate, Joseph Glas joined DuPont as a research engineer and then progressed through management assignments in research, manufacturing, marketing, and business, eventually to the position as head of DuPont’s fluoroproducts “Freon” and “Teflon” as vice president and general manager. He led DuPont’s efforts in developing safe alternatives for the “CFC’s” thereby supporting an accelerated phase-out of the production of CFCs throughout the world. The U.S. EPA recognized those efforts with its Environmental Protection Award and the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded DuPont its National Technology Medal in 2002. Today he is retired and has very recently moved to Tucson, Arizona, to be closer to his two daughters who are MDs and professors in the University of Arizona Medical School, and his three youngest of fourteen grandchildren. Together with his wife Donna, Glas established an endowed scholarship in chemical engineering in memory of his advisor, Professor James Westwater. Ever loyal to his alma mater, Glas chaired the department’s resource development committee in the early 1990s and has served on its external advisory committee. He also is a former convocation speaker. Glas received a 2020 Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois Alumni Association.