Karen and Wayne Ranbom        e-mail:  ranbom@comcast.net

Karen:  Chemistry    Rhodia Inc.            Wayne:  Chemistry   Arkema Inc

After graduation from RPI. Wayne and I were married in 1975 at the C+CC and headed off to the University of Minnesota where Wayne got his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1978 and I got my Master’s Degree in Organic Chemistry in 1977.  We moved to Central New Jersey area and have been here ever since.  Wayne started with FMC in Princeton, moved to M&T Chemicals in the early 80s which became Atochem, then Atofina and is now Director of Research at Arkema Inc in King of Prussia, PA.  I’ve had a varied career over the last 30 years, from Pharmaceutical Research to Adjunct Faculty in Chemistry at local colleges (The College of NJ) to my current position as Regulatory Manager at Rhodia Inc. in Cranbury NJ.  Working for 2 French companies has given us opportunities to travel both in the US and to France

We’ve made it back to RPI  a number of times over the years, and kept in touch with Prof Moore of the Chemistry Dept -  especially in the last 5 years when our son Mike was a student at RPI.  We have 3 children, Larissa (28), a PhD candidate in Cognitive Science at SUNY Binghamton who had a chemistry class with Paul Reisberg (RPI’73) when she was an undergrad at Wellesley College, Daniel (25) graduated from Colgate and will get his Masters’ degree in Welsh literature from the University of Wales.  Our youngest, Mike, graduated last year from RPI in Biomed Engineering and is now at Cornell.  We met our classmate Larry McKeen and his daughter Lindsay at Commencement last year.  The weather did not cooperate – you’d think a school full of engineers could figure out how to put up a tent to protect the crowd from the downpour.

With the kids off our payroll we’ve been doing more fun travel in the last few years, to Alaska, Tuscany, London, Wales, France and looking forward to cruising through the Panama Canal.  Hoping to see a lot of former classmates at Reunion in June!