Not poverty, nor a ruptured appendix, nor economic depression could stop Bodie C. Pryor’s ('35 BSChE) drive to get educated and contribute to his country. Those achievements range from pioneering the manufacturing process in synthetic rubber to instituting measures for pollution control to detecting causes for a variety of diseases.
Pryor, born in 1913, grew up Albuquerque in an adobe house with a dirt floor. He saw the way out of poverty was education and enrolled at UNM to study chemical engineering. Shortly before his freshman year, he was stricken by a ruptured appendix and in those pre-penicillin days, the prognosis was bleak. He recovered, worked his way through school, and graduated in 1935 to find no jobs in the midst of the Depression. Pryor worked for a few months with the CCC before receiving a scholarship from Columbia University to study for his M.S., ChE, which he earned in 1936.
At that time, most of the rubber being used in the U.S. was natural rubber, imported from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). With growing tension between the U.S. and Japan, the supply line could be interrupted by the Japanese, disrupting not only the U.S. economy but the nation’s growing need for rubber -- specifically tires, but many other rubber products as well. Prior to 1941, the process for creating synthetic rubber was known, but was only been successful in the lab. Pryor was hired by B.F. Goodrich, and says, “They had only been able to create synthetic rubber in the laboratory and had been unable to transfer the process to the plant for production. Our group was able to resolve the dilemma and were the first to do so." He and his team brought the process to commercial production just before the attack at Pearl Harbor, revolutionizing the industry and eliminating dependence on imported rubber.
Pryor continued creating new rubber formulas and applications as well as a high density polyethylene. He then moved into a new area of environmental management, where he recommended changes in pollution control in both the plastics and rubber industries.
Pryor always had a keen interest in and concern for the people he worked with. He visited them during extended hospital and home stays during illnesses. He observed that an unusually high number of them had kidney or bladder cancer and/or leukemia. Working together with the National Institute of Health, he was able to discover a cause of kidney and bladder cancers and leukemia in the rubber industry.
For 25 years after retirement, Pryor continued to search for a cure for leukemia. Along the way, he was widowed after 50 years of marriage, raised six college-educated children, was a rancher and a tree farmer, and was quite involved in church, community, and governmental activities. He still resides in Port Arthur, Texas.
Yes, Pryor had a strong desire to escape poverty. He was also driven to help others through staying focused on problem solving, working hard, and being honest. He still has an insatiable curiosity to learn new things. At age 96, he is still learning.
By Roger Pryor
It's a long way from La Paz, Bolivia to Albuquerque. Longer still is the journey from taking chemical engineering classes in Farris Engineering Center to attending a meeting in the Oval Office with the President of the United States. David Loaiza ('92 BSNE, '93 MS, '97 Ph.D., '01 MBA) has been on both journeys during his amazing career.
In 1988, Loaiza was an exchange student from Bolivia finishing high school in Santa Fe. He enrolled at UNM with plans to transfer to another school, but he liked UNM so much he stayed to complete all four of his degrees. “I enjoyed my classes and really got to know my professors,” he explains. “Plus, I liked the people, food, and weather.”
Loaiza worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) while he earned his Ph.D. At LANL, Loaiza researched radiation detection and conducted critical mass experiments. Later he moved to Washington D.C. and represented LANL as a technical advisor in the Department of Energy's Office of Dismantlement and Transparency. He helped shape U.S. non-proliferation policy and traveled to North Korea seven times to monitor the country's denuclearization.
When Loaiza learned about the White House Fellowship program, he applied because he felt it would be an excellent way to broaden his understanding of how government works. The rigorous interview process whittled thousands of highly accomplished candidates down to a class of just 14 who would have the opportunity to work at the highest levels of the Federal government.
For his fellowship, Loaiza sought to enhance his talents outside the technical realm, so he's working in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). “I wanted a position where I could learn about all areas of the government. In the OMB, I interact with all agencies.” The new Obama administration will give Loaiza and all of the Fellows an opportunity to compare administrations. “We'll see new angles and new directions because some of the approaches may change, and that will really be interesting.”
Loaiza says his UNM experience is key to his career success. “The school has a very strong engineering program, especially in nuclear engineering. The classes were small and the professors were so dedicated,” he says. “Plus, UNM has great relationships with LANL and Sandia. Overall, I received a very solid education at UNM.”