Posted under National Prime Time Awards Program by Communications on Wednesday June 18 2003 @ 12:09PM MDT
Contact: Monika Hill or Marty Rome
monika_hill@experienceworks.org
Experience Works 703-522-7272
Centenarian Research Scientist Named America’s Oldest Worker
Dr. Ray Crist, 102, is a professor at Messiah College
(Arlington, VA, September 18, 2002) At a news conference in Washington, D.C., today, Experience Works, the nation’s largest provider of training and employment services for older workers, announced that Dr. Ray H. Crist, 102, professor of Environmental Science at Messiah College, is America’s Oldest Worker for 2002. This special recognition is part of the Experience WorksSM Prime Time Awards Program, the only national program that, each year, honors the contribution of working seniors.
Dr. Crist is believed to be the oldest, full-time working chemist in the country and one of the oldest members of the American Chemical Society. “I guess you could say living has been my hobby,” says Dr. Crist. “I have never given a thought to working as far as it being a job. I have just kept on living and wondering and trying to understand nature.”
A celebrated and renowned scientist and researcher, Dr. Crist resides in Carlisle, Pa., and has been a vital part of the Messiah College faculty as a visiting professor of environmental sciences for over 30 years. His current area of research is bioremediation, a study that uses biological materials such as algae to remove heavy metal contaminants from the water and soil.
“As a 76-year member of the world’s largest scientific society, Dr. Crist has certainly contributed to the American Chemical Society and to chemistry in a powerful way. He was born before there was even a Nobel Prize in chemistry, and been part of some of the greatest scientific advances in history. We’re pleased to count him among our longest-standing members,” said Eli Pearce, president of American Chemical Society.
Dr. Crist, along with 52 outstanding older workers from every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are being honored during September 17-21 in Washington, D.C., as part of the Prime Time Awards Program, the nation’s premier older-worker recognition event. Each state’s honoree will also be recognized in separate events in their home states.
“Our nation is fortunate that Dr. Crist has decided to stay actively involved in the workforce,” said Andrea Wooten, president and CEO of Experience Works. “His tremendous commitment to sharing his wealth of knowledge and understanding of science with today’s youth is the kind of pledge to positively impact society that you’ll see repeated over and over again by all the outstanding older workers we honor each year.”
In addition to honoring America’s Oldest Worker, Experience Works also recognizes the outstanding employers of older workers. This year’s winners included St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital of Effingham, Ill.; Douglass Distributing of Sherman, Texas; Sears, Roebuck and Company – Credit Service Support Center in Louisville, Ky.; and Publix Super Markets, Inc. of Lakeland, Fla. These companies have active and successful efforts to recruit, train, and retain older workers.
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More Information about America’s Oldest Worker
Dr. Crist, who currently resides in Carlisle, Pa., believes that working “maintains a person as an integral part of the living process”, a philosophy that has served him well throughout his life and career and continues to serve him at age 102. His lifelong curiosity and drive to understand the natural world is an inspiration to both the scientific community and to everyone who knows him.
Born on March 8, in 1900, to a farming family in Pennsylvania, Dr. Crist developed an affinity for science during his early years spent working on the family farm. In 1911, Crist attended Messiah Bible School, now Messiah College because his father felt his primary school “didn’t give enough homework”. At the age of 16, Dr. Crist entered Dickinson College, graduating in 1920.
After graduation, he taught general sciences at Williamsport Dickinson Seminary, now Lycoming College. Within six years, Dr. Crist earned his doctorate in chemistry from Columbia University where he became a professor in the chemistry department. In 1928, he received the Cutting Travel Fellowship, spending a year in Berlin, Germany.
While teaching and conducting research at Columbia University, Dr. Crist became part of the Manhattan District Project in 1941. The Colombia Division of the Manhattan District Project worked on separating isotopes of uranium for use in the atomic bomb. He became director of the project for the Columbia University’s division in 1944, seeing the project through to its completion.
Between 1946 and 1963, Dr. Crist worked in the private sector at Union Carbide Chemical Corporation in its coal hydrogenation project, in Charleston, W.Va., and became director of the Basic Research Institute of Union Carbide Research Institute in Tarrytown, N.Y.
After retiring from Union Carbide, Dr. Crist returned to teaching in 1963 at Dickinson College. Because he had become concerned with the rapid growth of science and technology, he developed a course on the history of science, which studied the impact of science and technology on the course of civilization. In 1971, Dr. Crist left Dickinson and began working at Messiah College where he continued to pursue his research ideas.
Since 1990, Dr. Crist’s research has been published in 11 international journals, including an article in the Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, and he has presented at national and international meetings in Chicago, California, Atlanta, Florida, Montana, Sweden, Japan and France. He and Messiah College have applied for a patent and are working with industries towards a possible product to remove metals from water for practical use. He has been a member of the American Chemical Society for 76 years.
Dr. Crist’s has a personal academic mission to teach liberal art students to become socially responsible and understand how they might control the impact of the science and technology revolution on society and the environment.
Experience Works is a national, nonprofit organization that provides training and employment services for mature workers. Established in 1965 as Green Thumb, and renamed Experience Works in 2002, the organization reaches more than 125,000 mature individuals in all 50 states and Puerto Rico each year. Information about Experience Works and its programs can be found at www.experienceworks.org.