Larry McKeen

Larry.McKeen@outlook.com     Cell: 609-315-1505

Chemistry    DuPont retired

This is an update after our 50th reunion. After graduation I did not return to RPI for thirty years. I started graduate school in the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin, where I earned a Ph.D. in 1978. UW-Madison is a wonderful school, almost as good as RPI and most graduating Ph.D.’s headed for university teaching, but I opted to go for industry and joined DuPont in Philadelphia. I started as a mass spectroscopist but got bored and DuPont found me an assignment in a product development/R&D group working with fluoropolymers, often called Teflon®. My specialty has been in coatings. I was in that group until I retired at the end of 2013. I have worked with dozens of industries around the world and developed many products for them. Some of the best known include Canon, IBM, Xerox, McDonalds, Glaxo, 3M, PEMEX, Saudi Aramco. One product that has done very well was the non-stick coating that is on the inside of most metered dose inhalers that people use to treat their asthma. I have authored about a dozen books (not counting new editions) on the properties of plastics and one on fluorocoatings.

Shortly after retirement we moved to Surfside Beach, SC. Over 9 years now and we love it here. Keep busy by working a couple days a week at one of the premier golf courses in Myrtle Beach, Prestwick and of course playing a lot of golf. We are about 400 yards from the Atlantic Ocean and so spend a lot of time at the beach, some of it metal detecting.

Skiing is one of my interests and I met my wife Linda on a ski trip to Lake Placid and we were married in 1982. I am still skiing annually in the Sierras.

We have three kids; Lindsey is the oldest. She is the reason I first returned to RPI as she decided to go there and majored in biomedical engineering. She graduated in 2007 but decide to stay on and work on her doctorate in biology which she earned in 2011. Mike majored in business at James Madison University in Harrisonburg VA. The youngest, Steve went to La Salle University in Philadelphia and Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ.

Unfortunately, I had lost track of nearly all our classmates. However, attending the 50th reunion I got to meet several AXP fraternity brothers and classmates. It was a great time and I hope to return for the 200 year celebration and of course the 55th Reunion in 2028.

With Gerry Palumbo and Bob Mayer at the 50 Year Dinner 10/13/23

 

Larry with daughter Lindsey, RPI '07 and Karen and Wayne Ranbom with son Mike, RPI '07 at the Biomedical Engineering graduation dinner