Research Corporation - Presidents

Presidents

James M. Gentile, 2005-present. James Gentile became president of Research Corporation in January 2005 after nearly 30 years at Hope College where he held an endowed chair in biology and served as Dean for the Natural Sciences. He has received numerous national and international awards over the years, including the Alexander Hollaender Research Excellence Award from the Environmental Mutagen Society and the Cancer Research Medallion from the National Cancer Institute of Japan. He is an AAAS Fellow. Originally from Chicago, Dr. Gentile earned his Bachelor's degree from St. Mary's University of Minnesota and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from Illinois State University. He spent two years in postdoctoral studies in the Department of Human Genetics at the Yale School of Medicine before accepting his position at Hope College.

Michael P. Doyle, 2002. Michael Doyle is a chemist, educated at University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and Iowa State University in Ames. He did postdoctoral work at University of Illinois, Chicago. He taught at University of Arizona in Tucson, Nankai University in Tianjin, Japan; Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas before joining RCSA as vice president in 1997. He has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of Maryland since 2003.

John P. Schaefer, 1982 -2004. John Schaefer received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, New York; his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana; and was a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology. He began his career as an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, before moving to the University of Arizona in 1960. He served on the University of Arizona faculty for 21 years in numerous capacities: head of the Department of Chemistry; dean of the College of Liberal Arts; and as president of the university from 1971-1982. He became president of Research Corporation in 1982. Dr. Schaefer is also a skilled photographer and is one of the founders of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.

James Stacy Coles, 1968-1982. James Coles earned degrees from Mansfield State Teachers College and Columbia University. He taught chemistry at the College of the City University of New York and at Middlebury College, and was research supervisor at the Underwater Explosives Laboratory at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution during World War II. After the war, he taught chemistry and served as acting dean at Brown University. In 1952 Coles became president of Bowdoin College. In 1967 he became president of Research Corporation. He retired in 1982, but remained chairman of the Foundation’s executive committee until 1984.

J. William Hinkley, 1957-1967. Trained as an electrical engineer at Yale, William Hinkley worked for Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. from 1927 to 1943. After spending a year on the staff of the Radiation Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he became manager of the Research Construction Company, a division of Research Corporation which produced and tested pilot models of radar equipment developed at the Radiation Laboratory. Hinkley became director of Research Corporation’s newly formed Patent Management Division in 1946, and became president of the Foundation in 1957. Hinkley died August 1967 while still president of the Foundation.

Joseph Warren Barker, 1946-1957. Joseph Barker graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916. He became an officer in U.S. Army and served overseas before retiring in 1925 as a major. He became a professor of electrical engineering at MIT. At age 39, he became dean of the faculty of engineering at Columbia University. During World War II, when he was a special assistant to the secretary of the Navy, he received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

Howard Andrews Poillon, 1927-1945. Howard Poillon studied for a year at Columbia University School of Mines, then prospected in Alaska for 10 years where he was a mucker in the gold mines. In 1910, he became manager of the Vanadium Mines in Cutter, New Mexico and later formed his own firm of consulting engineers for mining. In 1920, he became a director of Research Corporation; in 1927 he became president, a post he held until 1945.

Arthur A. Hamerschlag, 1922-1927. Arthur Hamerschlag worked in engineering for the U.S. government in Cuba and Mexico from 1888 to 1892. From 1903 until 1921, he was the first president of Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), and was one of the "select group" of Carnegie's friends who were bequeathed a lifetime annuity upon Carnegie's death. Hamerschlag became president of Research Corporation in 1922, a position he held until his death in 1927.

Elon H. Hooker, 1915-1922. From 1912 to 1915, Research Corporation was run by its Board of Directors. The first president, Elon Huntington Hooker, was appointed in 1915. He received his undergraduate education at University of Rochester and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He was a chemist, hydrodynamic engineer, and founder of Hooker Electrochemical Company, one of the first electrochemical plants in the U.S. at Niagara Falls, N.Y. Hooker was a friend and associate of Teddy Roosevelt and was among those called to Roosevelt's bedside while Roosevelt was dying in 1919.