Suffering from Cassandra Complex

I consider myself a lucky man. I was hired under the Research Addressed to National Needs Program at Brookhaven National Lab; helped developed DOE's Energy Conservation Utilization Technology division; and I was trained by my mentor to be a futurist and an optimist. I've worked in and for companies and organizations that want practical and applied solutions for the petroleum, agricultural, food and mining industries as a consultant. I've been ignored, laughed at and revered for ideas, concepts and opinions. I believe science and technology has solutions and ignorance and poverty create most of the world's problems.

Previous innovative efforts in applied process chemistry have resulted in a new metal winning process; homogeneous and heterogeneous high activity catalysts; diesel soot reduction, advanced lubricants and additives for submarines and aircraft and created alternative ignition catalysts for advanced monopropellants, slickwater fracking and bio-based deicing and dielectric fluids. The National Research Council has recognized my innovative methanol patent as a future “benchmark discovery in catalysis”. I received an IR&D Award for one of the best technical innovations of 2001 and was a co-winner of a 2014 Innov8 Award. In addition, I built several teams assessing new technology and organized technical teams for pollution reduction and hazardous materials minimization and for the NASA commercial development of space.

In addition, I lectured at the university level, have authored over 75 publications and patents and have been an invited speaker at universities, professional meetings, conferences and symposia. At BNL, I was consultant to MIT chemical Engineering Practice School programs and won teaching awards at 2 major universities.