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This is the 27th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries ...
This is the 27th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.
Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and international members, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.
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BY THOMAS F. DEGNAN JR. AND MICHAEL P. RAMAGE
SEYMOUR LIONEL MEISEL, a retired Mobil Oil Corporation executive, died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on Dec. 28, 2015. He was 93 years old.
Cy was born to Benjamin W. and Bertha (Smith) Meisel in Albany, New York, on Aug. 14, 1922. He earned his B.S. in chemistry from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and his M.S. and Ph.D., also in chemistry, from the University of Illinois. Cy was a U.S. Navy veteran, having served in 1944.
Cy joined Mobil Oil as a research chemist in 1947 and rose quickly through the research organization. He was promoted to senior research chemist in 1950, supervisor of the Products Research Section of Mobil’s Central Research in 1958, and technical director of the Applied Research and Development Division in 1961. In 1968, he was promoted to vice president of the newly formed Mobil Research and Development Corporation with responsibility for Mobil Oil’s worldwide research and development (R&D). During Cy’s tenure as vice president (1968-87), Mobil’s R&D had a tremendous impact on the corporation’s financial results by significantly enhancing the value of Mobil’s science and engineering advances on Mobil’s commercial operations. Cy fostered an organization that remains among the premier R&D organizations in the energy industry, long after his retirement. This R&D organization has produced 19 National Academy of Engineering (NAE) members, more than 3,000 catalyst and process patents, pioneering mathematical models for chemical and refinery processes and oil and gas reservoirs, and synthetic lubricants, including Mobil 1 and Delvac 1. Breakthroughs nurtured under Cy’s leadership added more than $1 billion to Mobil’s shareholder value, which is a conservative estimate. These successes all started with Cy’s personal leadership style and vision!
The organization’s impact extended beyond Mobil’s bottom line, by helping to greatly reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil. Between 1968 and 1987, Mobil Research developed process and catalyst technologies that increased the yield of gasoline from a barrel of crude oil by greater than 40%, achieved major breakthroughs in catalysis and processes that helped the United States reduce its import of foreign petroleum by more than 1 million barrels per day during the 1973 and 1978 Arab Oil embargoes, and developed and commercialized Mobil’s ZSM-5 and at least a dozen other industry-leading catalysts. These landmark catalyst discoveries led to a string of major industrial advances in manufacturing polymers, petrochemicals, clean gasoline and diesel, and synthetic lubricants.
Among Cy’s major research contributions was his involvement in Mobil’s methanol to gasoline (MTG) discovery and commercialization. Cy was the principal author of an American Chemical Society (ACS) article, “Gasoline from methanol in one step,”1 that first disclosed Mobil’s MTG discovery. This discovery made headlines around the world as the first major synthetic fuels development since the development of the Fischer Tropsch process by German chemists in the early 1900s. The MTG process was commercialized in New Zealand in 1985.
Cy was an active member of several scientific organizations and was recognized with many awards, including the ACS Leo Friend Chemical Technology Award in 1976. Elected to the NAE in 1981, he served on the NAE’s Committee on Membership from 1986 to 1990 and as chair of that committee from 1989 to 1990. He authored two books and 30 technical publications, was the inventor or co-inventor of eight U.S. patents, and presented more than 50 papers at technical conferences.
Cy was a member of the Board of Trustees of Union College and was awarded its Alumni Gold Medal for distinguished service. He was a board member of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Nassau Club, Princeton United Jewish Appeal, and Princeton’s McCarter Theatre. Cy and his wife Jackie were patrons and strong supporters of the theatre for many years. Cy also served as president of the Board of the Friends of Princeton University Art Museum and a member of the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Studies. He shared his wife Jackie’s passion for art; they visited museums and art exhibits throughout the world.
Although Cy’s career included many noteworthy accomplishments, he was most proud of his family. He is survived by Jackie, his wife of 69 years; his three sons, Mark, Alan (Barbara), and Neil (Ann); and his five grandchildren, Stacey, Jeremy, Paul, Jay, and Tai; and three great-grandchildren, Aidan, Owen, and Joani.
Born under the astrological sign of the lion, Cy arranged to have the following poem engraved on his gravestone: “Outside a Lion, Inside a Dove, Science was his Passion, People were his Love.”
_____________________________ 1Meisel SL, Wise JJ, and Weisz PB. 1976. CHEMTECH 6(2):86-9.