Arthur Squires
Virginia Tech College of Engineering
A member of the National Academy of Engineering and a University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Arthur M. Squires died on May 18, 2012.
Squires was a distinguished member of the chemical engineering profession. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a recipient of the Henry Storch Award of the American Chemical Society in 1973 recognizing his contributions to fuel chemistry and engineering.
Educated at the University of Missouri (A.B. 1938) and Cornell University (Ph.D. 1947), Squires started his career at the M.W. Kellogg Company in 1942, participating in the design and startup of the gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the Manhattan Project.
He later worked at Hydrocarbon Research, Inc. (HRI) of New York City from 1946-59, where he became an expert in industrial fluidization processes. He was a self-employed consultant from 1959 to 1967 and then joined the chemical engineering faculty of the City College of The City University of New York. At City College, he served as chemical engineering chairman from 1970 to 1973 and as University Distinguished Professor from 1974 to 1976.
He joined the chemical engineering faculty at Virginia Tech in 1976, and was Frank C. Vilbrandt Professor of Chemical Engineering from 1976 to 1982 and University Distinguished Professor from 1978 to 1986.
Squires was an expert in fluidized beds, petroleum refining, hydrocarbon synthesis, coal conversions, iron ore reduction, low-temperature processes, dust filtration, and air pollution control. He was a consultant to the U.S. Bureau of Mines, Office of Coal Research, Electric Power Research Institute, United Nations, Office of Technology Assessment, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and others. Squires had a quick wit, broad interests, and enthusiasm for teaching, mentoring and helping young people in their careers.
Since his retirement from the department in 1986, Squires continued to enjoy a variety of activities in music, philosophy, anthropology, and world travel. He was particularly proud of his book, The Tender Ship: Governmental Management of Technological Change, published in 1986, that shared his many unique insights and experience about how government could productively get involved in technology development.
In 2011, he published From Toumai to G. Stein and O. Wilde, a book that describes his latest interests in human evolution.
No service is planned for the Blacksburg, Va. area at this time.