Lowell Technological Institute - Pickout Yearbook (Lowell, MA)

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During the winter and spring of 1950 and 1951, a Board of Directors was appointed by the Board of Trustees of Lowell Textile In- stitute. This Board of Directors met in April of 1951 to organize the Foundation formally. An Executive Committee was selected, and Dr. Harold Webber was appointed Executive Director. The Executive Committee met monthly at first to establish policies and to consider procedures relating to the admini- strative mechanisms for the business of the Foundation. Now that this has been accomplished, the Executive Committee meets when deemed necessary, to review the work of the Founda- tion and to guide the Executive Director in the management of Foundation affairs. The principles of operation set up by the Executive Committee are followed in all re- search projects undertaken by the Founda- tion. Each project must be one that will make a contribution to the educational program of the Institute and must be one that is within the scope of the staff and facilities of the Foundation. Every regular member of the staff must be willing and available to accept responsibil- ity for technical supervision of the research of a project. Each faculty member is limited to sixty hours a month on any project to in- sure against research work interfering with academic work. There are many prominent businessmen on the Board of Directors of the Foundation who are engaged in the textile industry. Among these are, Mr. Kenneth E. Bell, Vice-President and Technical Director of the A. C. Lawrence Leather Company; Mr. Roland E. Derby, Sr. of the Textile Aniline and Chemical Co.; Mr. Kenneth R. Fox, Vice-president of Burl- ington Mills Inc., and former president of Mrs. Lamoureaux using the Tabor abrader Checking the reports Miss Baribeault and the Uster Yarn Evenness Tester

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RESEARCH FOUNDATION Prior to 1950, Lowell Textile Institute participated extensively in the technical development of the textile industry thru the agency of a special service program. This program made available to industrial sponsors the services of the faculty and the use of the physical equipment of the Institute on a nominal fee basis. However this special service mechanism did not provide a coordinating control agency which could establish standards of practices or procedures of administration to exploit fully the potential utility of the personnel and the facilities of Lowell Textile Institute. 1st Row: Mr. Raymond, Miss Groves, Mr. Skalkeas, Miss Boucher, Mr. Jones 2nd Row: Mrs. Lamoureaux, Mr. Wang, Miss Baribeault, Miss Jordan So it was that the Massachusetts State Legislature was requested to establish a central research agency. Thru the efforts of Kenneth R. Fox, past president of the Institute, and Martin J. Lydon, his successor, the State Legislature set up in November of 1950, the desired agency which is now known as the Lowell Textile Research Foundation. The Foundation was established primarily for the purpose of encouraging and administrating research sponsored by industry. The Foundation personnel, the Institute faculty and the student body jointly constitute the staff available for in- vestigating problems involving textiles, paper, leather, and related areas of interest.

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Lowell Textile Institute; and Mr. Martin J. Lydon, President of Lowell Textile Institute. If some agency, mill, or other concern has a problem which it wishes investigated by the Foundation, it brings it to the Executive Committee, as no research work is solicited. If this problem meets the requirements of a project, the agency will be accepted as a sponsor and the research work will be started. A project principal is chosen by the Execu- tive Director, a man capable of han- dling all the technical details required by the project. Once he has agreed to undertake the job, the wheels of the Foundation begin to turn, and the project is outlined and set up with the Foundation handling all the finan- cial arrangements. The project principal will choose assistants to aid him in his work if they are needed. He may approach faculty members or students, graduate or under grad- uate, for this aid. The projects are subdivided into three clas- sifications, testing, development, and research. Testing is a service to a particular sponsor in the imm ediate area to perform required tests with the apparatus available at the Institute but otherwise unavailable in the surrounding area. Development is a service also to a par- ticular sponsor to perform specified opera- tions on machinery available at the Institute but unavailable at the sponsor ' s plant. Re- search is a service for industry in general with one agency acting as the sponsor but the entire industry receiving the benefits of any dis- coveries. Discoveries are usually published in one or more of the various industrial journals. The Foundation has at this time various projects that will be of great importance to the future of the textile industry. One of these projects is a survey to determine the eco- nomic and technological position of the wool scouring industry. The project is subdivided into four sections of study: the evaluation of present practices in scouring, an analysis of by-product recovery operations, an analysis of wool scouring by- products markets, and a new uses study. Professor Stuart Mandell is the project principal and the United States Department of Agriculture is the sponsor. Professor Man- dell has a full time assistant, an analyst, Mr. Robert Raymond. Professor J. B. Masaschi is chemical consultant on the project. Professor George G. Armstrong is the pro- ject principal of a study which will attempt Mr. Basil G. Skalkeas, Director of Research to determine the optimum backing fabric for abrasives. The basic system is evaluating the fabrics by testing means for a correlation between running conditions. In this project the Institute is offering the sponsor its unique facilities, including the entire Foundation staff and the Institute faculty, as well as full scale and pilot plant equipment.