Researcher Profile

In 1935 when Dr. Norman Hackerman graduated from The Johns Hopkins University with a Ph.D. in chemistry in the Depression, he couldn’t find a full-time job. So he took three part-time jobs.

He taught at Hopkins and Loyola University and worked at Colloid Corp., a company developing equipment to homogenize milk.

The company came up with a good product, but it wasn’t good enough to beat the competition.

Norman Hackerman listened to a string of “thank yous” and compliments when colleagues and students celebrated his 93rd birthday in early March.

“I learned my lesson,” Hackerman, professor emeritus at The University of Texas at Austin, said. “While we were doing it, someone else was doing it better.”

The lesson: Being active isn’t enough. You have to be successful.

On March 1, friends and colleagues gathered to testify that Hackerman learned that lesson well as they helped him celebrate his 93rd birthday.

Over his 70-year career, they said, Hackerman has been active and successful as teacher, researcher and administrator.

Dr. Larry F. Faulkner, president of the university and a chemist, called Hackerman the most important figure in science in Texas because he laid much of the foundation for science in the state.

Among Hackerman’s honors are the American Institute of Chemists’ Gold Medal, the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award of the American Chemical Society, the Vannevar Bush Award of the National Science Board and the National Medal of Science.

He served seven years as president or de facto president of The University of Texas at Austin and for 15 years as president of Rice University.

Through his years of administration, Hackerman continued research and teaching. He is an emeritus professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and conducts a freshman chemistry seminar.

It was clear from Hackerman’s talk at the celebration that he knew how to take action and take advantage when the action came to him.

Hackerman said 1945 was significant for him and not just because it was his first year at the university.

Hackerman, who’s been a chemist and college administrator for decades, makes a point with Larry R. Faulkner (center), a chemist and president of the university, and Stephen Martin, a chemist and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

In December 1945, he and two other chemistry professors formed the Texas Chemical Society and organized their own symposium. The American Chemical Society was not sending speakers, so they would arrange for their own.

It lasted a day and a half and cost them $6.50 each. They persuaded others to pitch in, too. “We got Pearl Beer to give us beer for nothing,” he said.

Hackerman said that symposium was the progenitor of regional symposiums now held around the country. The Southwest Regional Conference marks its 60th year in 2005.

Also in 1945, his research in surface chemistry and corrosion attracted attention from outside the university.

A representative of Mobil Oil came to his lab and asked Hackerman to be a consultant for the company. It would pay him $200 for two days of work per month.

“That was as much as I was making for the academic year,” he said.

He went to the university president to see if it was OK to consult.

“Why would you want to prostitute your science?” the president asked. “I might learn something from them,” Hackerman  said. “The president said, ‘Oh, that’s different’ and let me do it.”

Hackerman also received a $5,000 research grant from the Office of Research and Inventions, which became the Office for Naval Research.

“They kept sending me money every year until 1970 (when he became president of Rice),” he said. “So I had the first outright basic research grant in the state. I had the reputation for knowing how to get money because a guy came to see me.”

Over the years many more men and women, colleagues and students have come to see Norman Hackerman.

They have found, as Faulkner noted, Hackerman “brings passion, discipline and personal integrity to everything he does.”

Tim Green
Photos: Marsha Miller

Related Sites

Dr. Norman Hackerman
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
College of Natural Sciences