American Chemical Society receives multi-million dollar gift to support high school chemistry teaching

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2009 — The American Chemical Society (ACS) has received a gift of approximately $33 million from the Hach Scientific Foundation to support high school chemistry teaching.

The agreement signed by Kathryn Hach-Darrow, cofounder and chair of the Hach Scientific Foundation, and Madeleine Jacobs, ACS Executive Director and CEO, transfers the foundation’s funds and assets to the ACS. The Hachs chose the ACS because, according to Hach-Darrow, it “represents permanence and stability, and it truly embraces chemistry on a national level.”

Jacobs says the foundation’s programs are a natural fit with the Society, complementing what ACS has been doing in high school chemistry, but not duplicating any existing programs. ACS will continue the Hach Scientific Foundation’s support of a scholarship program for undergraduate chemistry majors interested in a career teaching chemistry, a scholarship program for chemists who have a degree and who want to pursue careers teaching chemistry, and outreach grants to chemistry teachers.

“We are truly honored to have the confidence of the Hach family in carrying out the vision of Clifford and Kathryn,” Jacobs adds. “At a time when science and technology training couldn’t be more important to our nation and the world, the Hach gift will help ACS showcase the promise of chemistry to young people and educators.”

In honor of the gift, the ACS headquarters building will be renamed the Clifford & Kathryn Hach Building of the American Chemical Society in a special ceremony later this year.

Clifford Hach and Kathryn Carter met as undergraduates at Iowa State University in the early 1940s and married in 1943. Clifford, an analytical chemist, and the media-savvy Kathryn began Hach Co. in 1947. The company’s first product was a water-analysis system invented by Clifford that tested calcium and magnesium in water.

Over the next half century, the company developed and sold reagents and instruments that simplified quantitative analysis. Clifford died in 1990 and nine years later Kathryn sold the company to Danaher, Corp., where it continues under the Hach name.

Bryce Hach told Chemical & Engineering News that chemistry was his grandfather’s “hobby and business. He couldn’t wait to get to work on Monday.” Clifford Hach founded the Hach Scientific Foundation in the early 1980s to financially support chemistry students and as a way to help others share his passion.

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