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November 12, 2001
Purdue honors 10 food industry innovators
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Ten innovators will receive Purdue University Outstanding Food Science Awards at ceremonies Wednesday (11/14). Among the honorees are a former vice chairman of RJR and a founder of Red Gold Inc. canning company.
"We are presenting the Department of Food Science awards to these people who have led the way in the industry," said department head Philip Nelson. He said that all of those to be honored had either earned at least one degree from Purdue and/or worked closely with the university's food science program.
"We have been very fortunate to have support from such high-caliber people," Nelson said.
Those being honored are:
Gale R. Ammerman, who earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Purdue after serving in the Army Air Force as a highly decorated glider pilot during World War II. Following his graduation, the Sullivan, Ind., native was named acting head of the university's Department of Horticulture. Ammerman then joined Libby's, where he was a researcher for 10 years before returning to academia. He finished his career as a professor and head of the Food Science and Technology Department at Mississippi State University. The professor emeritus now resides in Aliceville, Ala., where he is director of the town's Chamber of Commerce.
Robert J. Carbonell, a native of El Salvador, is a former vice chairman of RJR. After leaving the company, he and other investors purchased Del Monte Foods, a division of the corporation. In 1949, Carbonell received an 18-month U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to study food biochemistry at Purdue. He then returned to his homeland to earn his doctorate, studying tropical fruit. Before joining RJR, Carbonell headed Fleischmann Laboratory's research on polyunsaturated margarine and cholesterol-free egg substitute products. He has served on the Nutrition Foundation's board and executive committee, the Clemson University President's Advisory Council, and as director of the Georgia Technical University National Advisory Board and the Food Industry Safety Council. Purdue awarded the Coconut Grove, Fla., resident an honorary doctorate in 1990.
Arnold E. Denton of Moorestown, N.J., earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue in 1949 and his master's and doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. He began his professional career as head of the Swift & Co. Pet Food Research Division. In 1958, he became director of basic research for Campbell Soup Co., retiring from the firm in 1990 as senior vice president. Denton returned to Purdue in 1990 in his current position as professor in the Department of Food Science. He has served on the New Jersey Council for Research and Development, Rutgers University Food Science Advisory Board, the United States Department of Agriculture Advisory Committee, the American Chemical Society Chemistry in the Economy Advisory Committee, and the USDA National Agricultural Research and Extension Users Advisory Board, among others. Purdue awarded him an honorary doctorate of agriculture in 1986.
Bernard J. Liska, of Nineveh, Ind., was dean of Purdue's School of Agriculture from 1980-85 and a professor of food science at the university from 1959-85. He has served as president of the National Institute of Food Technologists. Liska also served as the chairman of the American Dietetic Association Advisory Board. His work as USDA chairman for state agricultural research, extension and teaching budgets representing the nation's land-grant universities to Congress, resulted in $500 million being awarded annually for state programs. The former dean also has been a consultant for Sealtest Foods, Beatrice Foods, Inland Container Corp., Maplehurst Group and the USDA-OICD in Saudi Arabia, among others.
Thomas Ravencroft began his career in 1954 with Dean Foods Co., then at a small Midwestern dairy. The firm sent the plant employee to Purdue, where he graduated in 1959 with a degree in agriculture. Ravencroft quickly rose to the position of plant manager. His climb up the corporate ladder coincided with the growth of Dean, which is now a New York Stock Exchange traded company with annual sales of dairy and specialty foods of more than $4.2 billion. In 1994, the company promoted Ravencroft to senior vice president and president of the Dairy Division. He became senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions in 1999 and was a driving force in Dean's 17 acquisitions. The Rochester, Ind., resident recently retired.
Frances Reichart of Elwood, Ind., helped her father, Grover Hutcherson, launch Orestes Canning, now Red Gold Inc., just before World War II. In 1946, Reichart graduated from Purdue and resumed work at the company. She and her husband, Ernie, took the helm of the canning company when Hutcherson retired the following year. They changed the firm's name in 1970. Red Gold's line has expanded to three northeastern Indiana processing plants that, in addition to peeled tomatoes, also produce salsa, chili sauce and tomato paste, juice and ketchup. The Reichart's have continued the Purdue legacy: Two sons and several grandchildren have graduated from, or are attending, the university. Son Brian is now president of the firm. Red Gold regularly provides internships and jobs for Purdue students, and Reichart funded the Fran Hutcherson Reichart Quality Food Processing Lab in the Department of Food Science.
Ronald R. Rice is an Indiana native who graduated from Purdue in 1957 with a degree in dairy manufacturing. He spent his entire career at Kroger Co., beginning in 1954 as a management trainee while still in college. In 1971, Rice was instrumental in designing, building and later managing what was then the world's largest, most modern dairy processing plant. In 1974, he was promoted to vice president of Kroger's Dairy Foods Division, then to president of Kroger Manufacturing and senior vice president of the corporation. In this position Rice was responsible for 28 manufacturing facilities in 11 states with annual sales in excess of $2 billion. Rice, now a resident of Osprey, Fla., and Cincinnati, also is founder and past chairman of the International Dairy Foods Association and past chairman of the International Ice Cream Association. Rice, who received an honorary doctorate from Purdue in 2000, will be unable to attend the ceremonies.
William R. Scholle, who will be honored posthumously, developed bag-in-box packaging in 1954, first using it for battery acid. Scholle graduated from Purdue in 1938 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and began his chemical business working out of his home in Chicago seven years later. By 1958, he adapted the innovation for milk, and then in 1967 expanded it to wine. He continued to find new uses for the invention, and the success allowed him to acquire other packaging companies around the world. The Scholle Chemical Corp. is now based in Irvine, Calif. He was honored in 1983 as Aimcal Man of the Year for his development of metallized polyester for liquid packaging, and in 1991 the Packaging Education Foundation elected him to the Packaging Hall of Fame. William R. Scholle, who died in 1997, will be represented at the Outstanding Food Science awards by his son, Robert W. Scholle.
William J. Stadelman of West Lafayette, Ind., is a Purdue Department of Food Science professor emeritus. He served on the faculty from 1955-83 and is author of more than 200 articles and co-author of the books "Egg Science" and "Egg and Poultry Meat Processing." Stadelman, who still maintains an office in the department, has been an expert witness in cases concerning the product quality of eggs and poultry meats. He has served as president of the Poultry Science Association, chairman of the Institute of Food Technologists Refrigerated and Frozen Food Division, and since 1966 as a member of the Refrigeration Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee. Among his many honors are membership in the International Poultry Hall of Fame and the American Poultry Hall of Fame, and as a fellow of the Poultry Science Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Roy L. Whistler was a Purdue professor of food science from 1950-82. Now a professor emeritus, the West Lafayette resident still mentors postdoctoral students. Whistler is past president of the American Association of Cereal Chemists, the American Institute of Chemists and the International Carbohydrate Organization. He also has been chairman of the American Sugar Association Advisory Committee for Research, the National Association of Wheat Growers Wheat Utilization Committee and the American Sugar Institute Research Committee. Among his previous honors are the American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal, American Chemical Society Honorary Fellow Award, the USDA Hendricks Award and honorary doctorates at Purdue and Heidelberg College. Whistler's generosity has contributed to the establishment of a research fund, an equipment fund and a professorship in the Department of Food Science.
Writer: Susan A. Steeves, (765) 496-7481, ssteeves@aes.purdue.edu
Source: Phil Nelson, (765) 494-8256
Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722; Beth Forbes, bforbes@aes.purdue.edu;
https://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/AgComm/public/agnews/
NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: You are invited to attend the reception and awards ceremony beginning at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, in the South Ballroom of the Purdue Memorial Union.
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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