“I spent most of my industrial career working on processes and devices and materials to clean pollutants out of the air we breathe,” said Lester, who retired in 1996 after a 38-year career first with Universal Oil Products Co. and then AlliedSignal Research and Technology. He now runs his own consulting company and is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University.
Lester is arguably best known for his contributions to the chemistry of catalytic converters, a device that has helped reduce pollutants in automobile exhaust by 99 percent since 1975. Other achievements included catalysts to purify flue gases from chemical plants and to destroy ozone in air entering airplane cabins.
He mused: “If I were independently wealthy, I would have paid my company to be able to do the work I did for them. I enjoy it that much. It’s always been a challenge to me.”
Lester said his Sunday-school teacher, upon finding out her student was planning to major in chemistry, asked him whether he thought he’d be able to do good. “At the time, I gave her an example or two — nonbiodegradable detergents in our water was a big issue then for society.
“And now I feel very proud as a person of what I helped do, especially when I fly into Los Angeles — it’s so much cleaner today,” he said. “I feel good about that. I didn’t lie to that lady.”
Lester received his undergraduate degree from Berea College in 1954 and his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in 1958. He is a member of the ACS divisions of petroleum and of industrial engineering chemistry.
The ACS E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry is sponsored by ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co. and ExxonMobil Chemical Co.