Six Honored at Commencement

SIX RECEIVE SPECIAL COMMENCEMENT HONORS AT OHIO STATE

     COLUMBUS -- The achievements of two scientists, an 
entrepreneur, an architect, an administrator, and a business 
executive were recognized with special honors during The 
Ohio State University's summer quarter commencement 
ceremonies Aug. 31 in St. John Arena.

     Honorary doctorates were presented to entrepreneur 
Peter L. Scott, materials scientist John P. Hirth, architect 
Austin E. Knowlton and to environmental engineering 
scientist Howard T. Odum.

     The Distinguished Service Award was presented to 
Kathryn T. Schoen, former Ohio State faculty member and 
administrator, and to John W. Berry, former chair of the 
Ohio State University Board of Trustees.

      Peter L. Scott, Doctor Of Business Administration

     Peter L. Scott, the former chairman and CEO of Black & 
Decker Corp., is a 1949 graduate of Ohio State's College of 
Engineering.  With no formal business training, Scott has 
consistently demonstrated his expertise in reviving dormant 
corporations.

     At the age of 24, Scott formed Hermetic Seal 
Transformer, which grew into an $8 million business in five 
years. The company was acquired by Dresser Industries, and 
Scott became president.  Another of his companies, Scott 
Electronics, was acquired by NCR, and he went on to head its 
electronics subsidiary, Electronic Communications Inc.  He 
was named vice president of NCR in 1972.

     In 1975, as executive vice president and board member, 
Scott founded UTC's $3.5 billion electronics sector, an 
organization of 49,000 employees in 11 countries. In 1983, 
he founded Technology Transitions Inc., a high-technology 
venture capital and investments firm, which he merged with 
Emhart Corporation in 1985, becoming chairman and CEO.  In 
1989, he merged Emhart with Black & Decker and became 
chairman of the combined companies.  He retired from active 
business in 1991.

              John P. Hirth, Doctor of Science

     John P. Hirth, one of the world's preeminent materials 
scientists, is a Battelle Distinguished Professor at 
Washington State University and a Distinguished Scientific 
Fellow at Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories.

     Hirth received his B.S. and M.S. from Ohio State in 
1953, and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 
1957.  He returned to Oho State as a Mershon Associate 
Professor in metallurgical engineering and became a full 
professor in 1964.  He remained at Ohio State until 1988 
when he took early retirement.

     During his tenure, Hirth gained recognition as the 
leading expert on dislocation theory in materials science as 
well as other physical and mechanical behaviors of solids.

     He has authored or co-authored some 400 publications 
and served as editor of the journal Scripta Metallurgica et 
Materialia from 1974 to 1994.

     An excellent teacher and researcher, Hirth was awarded 
Ohio State's Distinguished Scholar Award, as well as several 
honors in the College of Engineering: the MacQuigg Teaching 
Award, the College Distinguished Research Award and the B.G. 
Lamme Meritorious Achievement Medal.

         Austin E. Knowlton, Doctor of Architecture

     Austin E. Knowlton, one of the nation's most successful 
architects and builders, is the owner and CEO of Austin E. 
Knowlton Companies.  He received his degree in architecture 
and civil engineering from Ohio State in 1931.

     After graduation, Knowlton joined and later assumed 
ownership of his father's company, Knowlton Construction 
Company, which was engaged in constructing public buildings.

     His companies have designed, financed, and built more 
than 160 college and university buildings on nearly every 
major campus in Ohio, as well as more than 100 elementary 
and secondary schools. His companies have also constructed 
more than 35 major hospitals and 43 United States Post 
Offices throughout the country.

     His Ohio State buildings include the Fawcett Center, 
Hitchcock Hall, Houck House, Jones Graduate Tower, the 
School of Allied Medical Professions, Wilce Health Center, 
Drake Union and Larkins Hall.

                Howard T. Odum, Doctor of Science

     Howard T. Odum, a research professor of environmental 
engineering sciences at the University of Florida, is a 
pioneer in the field of ecology.

     Acknowledged as the founder of the developing 
discipline of ecological engineering, Odum has distinguished 
himself in a number of fields, including marine science, 
wetland and aquatic geology, economics, engineering.

     Odum received his A.B. in zoology from the University 
of North Carolina in 1947 and his Ph.D. in the 
biogeochemistry of strontium zoology from Yale University in 
1951.

     His studies of the self-organization of ecosystems in 
bays, the rain forest, and wetlands have had a profound 
influence on environmentalists and conservationists as well 
as economists and policy makers.

     Odum has received numerous awards and is the author of 
Environment, Power and Society; Energy Basis for Man and 
Nature; Systems Ecology; and Ecological Mesocosms.

       Kathryn T. Schoen, Distinguished Service Award

     Kathryn T. Schoen, served The Ohio State University  
with distinction as a faculty member and an administrator 
for more than two decades, before retiring in 1984.

     Schoen, who attended Taylor University in Indiana and 
Northwestern University, earned her B.S. degree from Capital 
University in 1957.  She holds both a master's degree (1962) 
and a doctorate (1965) from Ohio State.

     In 1970, she co-chaired the first University Committee 
on the Status of Women, which produced a landmark study on 
the status of faculty, staff, and student women and led to 
the creation of a standing Advisory Committee on Women. 

     Schoen was instrumental in seeing that fair admissions 
practices were instituted at the university, and became the 
first woman associate provost for faculties in 1972.  In 
1978, she was named vice-president for education services, 
the first woman to attain that administrative rank.  In 
1982, she served as acting director for university 
communication before being named acting dean of the College 
of Nursing.

     Her administrative talent and her contributions to the 
university and community were recognized in 1983 with the 
establishment of the Kathryn T. Schoen Endowment Fund, which 
provides an annual award to an outstanding female faculty or 
staff member.

          John W. Berry, Distinguished Service Award

     John W. Berry, chairman of Berry Investments Inc. and 
president and trustee of the Loren M. Berry Foundation, was 
a member of The Ohio State University Board of Trustees from 
1981 to 1990, serving as chair in 1989-90.

     Berry earned his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth 
College in 1944.  He began work as a salesman at L.M. Berry 
and Co., a telephone directory advertising company, in 1940 
and worked his way through the ranks to become president in 
1963 and chairman of the board and CEO in 1973.

     In 1981 Berry was appointed to the Ohio State 
University Board of Trustees by Gov. James Rhodes.  During 
his tenure on the board, he saw the university through its 
first $1 billion budget and its first capital campaign.  The 
five-year campaign, completed in June 1990, initially had a 
$350 million goal and eventually raised more than $460 
million.  Berry contributed significantly to the campaign 
with the endowment of the Berry Chair in New Technologies in 
Marketing.

                            #

Contact:  Tracy Turner, University Communications,
          (614)688-3682.


[Submitted by: Von Reid-Vargas (ereid@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
               
Thu, 31 Aug 1995 10:31:20 -0400]
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