Donald D. Norwood
Chevron Phillips Chemical Company
Inducted 2015
Donald D. Norwood (1926 – 2021) was most-popularly known for his groundbreaking invention of the loop reactor, used for ethylene and propylene polymerization, and for his continued pioneering efforts to develop and improve this technology over the course of his long and fruitful career.
Mr. Norwood earned a chemical engineering degree from the University of Missouri after serving active duty in the U.S. Army during World War II before beginning his professional plastics career at Phillips Petroleum Company, where he worked in research and development. Mr. Norwood continued to serve in research roles focusing on cis-polybutadiene rubber and other synthetic elastomers, polyethylene and polypropylene pilot plants and pipe-loop PP and PE processes.
In addition to having more than 55 patents in his name, Mr. Norwood has also served on the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, conducted engineering seminars at the Georgia Institute of Technology and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from Chevron Phillips Chemical Company in 2006, in appreciation for his invention and development of one of the company’s most valuable technologies: the slurry loop reactor.