Howard Black:  

I was born in New York City and moved to Greenwich in 5th grade. Stayed there until going to college in Ohio, triple majoring in chemistry, pre-med, and motocross racing (the last was not school sanctioned ;-). I graduated, thoroughly sick of school, moved to Grand Rapids, MI, where I was the service manager for two motorcycle dealerships by day, and played jazz guitar around the various clubs by night. For a couple of years this was cool, but I started feeling restless and intellectually dead, finding myself reading my old organic chem books at night, so went for my M.S. at Central Michigan Univ. in Mt. Pleasant. After 2 really successful years there, I went to Evanston, IL, and earned my Ph.D. in 3 years in synthetic organic chemistry in 1980. My first job was at Aldrich Chemical Co. in Milwaukee, the world's largest supplier of research chemicals. My first position was P.I. of a synthetic group to the National Cancer Institute, preparing 100g quantities of potential anticancer drugs already proven in vitro. My second position was manager of the pilot plant, where half the business was "catalog service" and the other half was contract work, usually preparing large (several kilos to over a ton) quantities of pharmaceutical intermediates. My first love was academics, so after 3.5 yrs at Aldrich, I began my academic career at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL. I rose through the ranks quickly, mainly to get it over with, receiving tenure in four years and making Full Professor in five years - a record that still stands! :-) I received very high student evaluations and ran a large, productive, externally funded research group where we invented new organic reactions, developed new pharmaceuticals, streamlined the syntheses of existing agents, and established an international reputation. In my 21+ years, I had 130 research students, includ...Expand for more