Chemical Abstracts leader will deliver commencement address

COLUMBUS – Robert J. Massie, president of Columbus-based Chemical Abstracts Services (CAS), will be the speaker for summer quarter commencement on Aug. 27 at The Ohio State University.



Approximately 1,900 students will receive degrees at the ceremony, which begins at 1 p.m. at the Jerome Schottenstein Center.

Massie is an advocate for Ohio's continuing commitment to information technology and research-driven economic development.

A division of the American Chemical Society, CAS is the world's leader in providing chemical literature and structure-related databases for research and patenting. CAS headquarters, housing some 1,300 scientists and other skilled associates, occupies a 55-acre campus adjacent to Ohio State's Columbus campus. CAS has operations in Europe, Japan, and across Asia.

Massie has extensive experience in the information industry and international business. Before becoming president of CAS in 1992, he was president of Thomson Corporation's Gale Group, the largest library reference publisher in the U.S., and held a series of senior executive positions with Torstar, Canada's largest newspaper and book publisher. Earlier in his career, he was a management consultant with McKinsey and Co., and practiced international law with the Washington, D.C. firm of Covington and Burling. In his first full-time job out of graduate school, he was as an attorney in a Tehran law firm during the last years of the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Massie has authored a number scientific research papers on the digital age and speaks frequently to industry groups internationally on the value of scientific information to global research.

Massie holds a joint JD/MBA degree from Columbia University. He earned his B.A. from Yale with honors in French and modern European languages. He currently is Chairman of the Board of OSU's University Medical Center Partners, and is a board member of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, COSI, the Columbus Technology Council, and the Columbus Partnership.