Gary Whiting reappointed Joseph H. Collie Professor
Gary Whiting, professor of practice of chemical engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was reappointed as the Joseph H. Collie Professor of Chemical Engineering by Virginia Tech President Tim Sands and Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke.
The Joseph H. Collie Professorship in Chemical Engineering is awarded to a distinguished professor who has extensive industrial experience and expertise in production, marketing, and sales of chemical products to introduce chemical engineering students to advanced business and marketing concepts in chemicals distribution management. The professorship was created in 1995 with a gift by its namesake, who earned his bachelor's in chemical engineering from the university in 1950.
Whiting has held the title of Collie Professor of Chemical Engineering since 2016.
Whiting has more than 30 years of experience in the chemical industry and 30 years of experience as a small business owner and entrepreneur. He retired from DuPont in 2015, with significant experience in marketing, new business development, process and product development, and project engineering.
During the first half of his career with DuPont, he worked largely in research and development implementing process improvements resulting in patents in the area of reactor design and control and new product development. Whiting rose through the technical ranks and was named as a DuPont Titanium Technologies Research/Engineering Fellow in 2004.
As business venture manager leading DuPont Titanium Technologies’ effort in the area of nanomaterials, Whiting’s team created a new nanotitanium dioxide product that was launched as a specialty product useful in UV absorption and scattering in polymer systems. Whiting was a co-author of the highly regarded Nano Risk Framework, a collaborative effort between DuPont and Environmental Defense Fund for the responsible development, production, use and disposal of nanoscale materials. For this work, he received the DuPont Sustainable Growth Excellence Award in 2008.
Whiting’s final seven years at DuPont Titanium Technologies (now Chemours Titanium Technologies) was as global product manager. He was responsible for the profitability, competitiveness, quality, and sustainability of a more than half-billion dollar global product portfolio. In this role, Whiting worked with team members from Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and South America, providing him with a global perspective and key global contracts.
Since his arrival at Virginia Tech in 2016, Whiting has developed and taught a year-long course, “Business and Marketing Strategies in the Process Industries,” that is unique among chemical engineering and marketing departments.
He also serves as an undergraduate academic and career advisor, and offers a noncredit course on Chemical Engineering Job Search. Whiting’s breadth and depth of chemical industry knowledge, including technical, business, and marketing, together with his dedication and patience in helping undergraduate students, will be a great benefit to future chemical engineering students.
Whiting received his bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
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