Welch Foundation Works For Chemistry

One of the major private sources of funding for academic chemists in the United States is a foundation started at the bequest of Robert Alonzo Welch, a man who, ironically, didn't even finish elementary school. Despite his lack of formal education, Welch had an admiration for chemistry because of the discipline's contribution to his success (see story on page 27). Founded in 1954--two years after Welch's death--with $25 million allotted in his will, the Houston-based Welch Foundation now has assets of more than $280 million. Norman Hackerman (Chairman), Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and President Emeritus, William Marsh Rice University, Houston William O. Baker Chairman of the Board (retired), AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J. Elias J. Corey Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Peter B. Dervan Professor of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Joseph L. Goldstein Professor and Chairman of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas Yuan T. Lee Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley William N. Lipscomb, Jr. Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley Grants and awards distributed by the Welch Foundation fall into three main categories: an international life achievement award, grants to Texas university and college faculty researchers, and a summer high school seed program. The Welch Award, first presented in 1972, is an international life achievement award for academic chemical research. Recently, William von Eggers Doering, Mallinckrodt Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, and John D. Roberts, Institute Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology were selected to share the 1990 Welch Award. This is the first time the prize has been shared. The financial award, which has increased as foundation assets have grown, reached $225,000 this year. Glenn T. Seaborg, the 1951 Nobel laureate in chemistry, will make the formal presentation of a gold medallion and $112,500 each to Doering and Roberts on October 22, at a banquet in their honor in Houston. Seaborg, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, has been a member of the Welch scientific advisory board since 1957. Other foundation funds are designated to remain in Texas. Currently, 53 Texas colleges and universities are benefiting from no-strings-attached research grants. Most grants are for three years, and average about $20,000 per year. "Their [the foundation's] goal is to fund the best kind of chemistry that's going on in the state. Most faculty at both Austin and Houston are getting money from them," says grant recipient Marye Anne Fox, professor of chemistry at the University of Texas, Austin. One variety of the foundation's Texas grants is aimed at helping smaller colleges and institutions attain funding for chemistry departments and equipment. Additionally, Welch sponsors 24 university chairs in chemistry and related sciences, as well as scholarships, an annual lecture tour, and an annual international conference on chemical research. The foundation also is the primary sponsor of a Texas high school seed program, designed to place teenagers in chemistry labs on college campuses--and then, foundation officials hope, into chemistry as a profession. Joseph J. Lagowski, who is both project director and a professor of chemistry at the University of Texas, Austin, says that the program is intended to "give these students a complete immersion in an academic research experience." It must be working: In the six years since it was instituted, almost all of the participants from this five-week program are entering undergraduate programs as chemistry majors. Fourteen students attended the first of these summer programs in 1984. While only the Austin campus hosted the program at first, subsequent success led to the addition of the University of Houston as a second location in 1988. This summer, 36 students are participating in the program. According to foundation spokesman George Bugbee, the original trustees whom Welch chose for the foundation were businessmen that he knew from his early days in Houston, investors in the then-new oil mining industry. After Welch's death in 1952, the new trustees set the wheels in motion. They traveled around the country talking to scientists, asking questions about what aspects of research really needed funding, and determining what, if anything, was already being provided. And they followed Welch's directive: "Don't fund bricks and mortar, fund brains." After quickly realizing that the field was more complex than they thought, the trustees appointed an advisory board to help them use the money as wisely as possible. Strict guidelines were established--so strict that there weren't enough people to give the money to. Only 17 researchers qualified under those guidelines for the first round of funding. Today, by contrast, the field of academic chemistry has grown tremendously, and the foundation funds only one of every 10 grant applications. Approximately 1,400 grants were made for the previous academic year. Today's trustees, like their predecessors, are Texas business leaders. A Scientific Advisory Board (see list on page 26), composed of eight prominent U.S. scientists, reviews all aspects of the foundation, and recommends nominees for the Welch Foundation Award in Chemistry. For more information, contact The Welch Foundation, 4605 Post Oak Place, Suite 200, Houston, Texas 77027; (713) 961-9884, or George Bugbee, Hill and Knowlton Inc., One Riverway, Houston, Texas, 77056; (713) 961-3334. When Robert Alonzo Welch ended his formal education as a fifth-grader in the late 1800s, his practical education was just about to begin. The Civil War had financially wiped out his previously wealthy South Carolina family, and young Robert needed to go to work. Employment prospects were bleak locally, so he set his sights on Houston, where he found a job in the paint business. Welch--not to be confused with the Robert Welch who founded the John Birch Society--proved to be an excellent worker, and wanted to learn about the business he was in. His fascination with research began because of his desire to learn about the product he was selling; he was interested in learning about the chemistry of paint. Welch's interest in paint's chemistry sparked his interest in the chemistry of other substances. He soon met Herman Frasch, who had invented a process of obtaining sulfur from underground deposits by passing superheated steam down a shaft to liquefy the sulfur, which was then forced up a concentric tube by compressed air. One of the first huge sulfur fields in Houston was discovered using the new Frasch method, and Welch, an initial investor, profited handsomely. Welch then was able to form his own oil and sulfur mining companies: the Mound Oil Company, and Fidelity Oil and Royalty Company. As the years passed, he realized what a prominent role chemistry played in his life, and he wanted to share part of the good fortune he enjoyed because of his association with chemistry. He set that concept in motion when he made provisions for the establishment of the Welch Foundation. --K.F.D.

Welch Foundation Works For Chemistry

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