08-31-95 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] All documents are the responsibility of their originator.