Column: Charles Goodyear Medal winner Eric Baer still going strong at 86

Eric Baer, the 2018 recipient of the Charles Goodyear Medal from the ACS Rubber Division, still remembers the first time he was published. It was in 1954, when he was working toward his doctorate at Johns Hopkins.

The paper dealt with heat transfer. The intent was to prevent drop formation from condensation. Part of the experiment was putting a thin Teflon surface on a metal, a technology still in use in the frying pans of today.

But that was hardly the last publication for Baer, who has been a full-time faculty member since 1962 at what is now Case Western Reserve University. He built the school's Department of Macromolecular Science & Engineering from scratch, and even served a five-year stint as the dean of Science & Engineering.

Along the way, he authored more than 650 publications, and authored or co-authored seven books. In addition to that, he served as the editor of a number of journals, including 25 years as the editor of the Journal of Applied Polymer Science. He said editing was hard work but he enjoyed it, because you learn a lot by editing works of others.

Baer is a big believer in studying research papers from the past—something he doesn't think students do enough of these days—because he knows that those who don't "read history are bound to repeat it, and that's not a good idea."

But that doesn't mean the professor is stuck in the past. Nothing could be further from the truth. When asked how gratifying it was to be part of a collaborative effort with Dow that led to a whole new class of thermoplastic elastomers, he said he was proud of the work but doesn't dwell on it. "I don't like living in the past," he replied. "I like living in today, in the present."

And even though he celebrated his 86th birthday on July 18, he shows no signs of calling it a career. He said the current state of the department he built at Case Western remains strong, with 13 faculty members, a mix of some older and some younger faculty, as the school moves into the future.

In his address at the Rubber Division meeting, part of it discussed layered film structures, one focus of his current research. Baer still feels there are breakthroughs to be found in polymer science, but the researchers must remain focused. "The grand magical breakthrough by just having plain luck, that's rare," he said.

To bring out those jewels is a bit like diamond mining, Baer added. "It's not easy, and I can't predict it."

But when he and his research team do discover it, you can be sure it's a good bet it will be published.

Meyer is editor of Rubber & Plastics News. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @bmeyerRPN.