Photograph by Campus Photographer Herb Weitman
Glenn L. Allen, Jr. was born in San Rafael, California in 1914. He grew
up on a fruit farm in the Santa Clara Valley. He attended the University
of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1933 as a chemical engineer.
At Great Western Electrochemical Company in California, Glenn and two
colleagues developed a method for photochemical synthesis of chlorinated
hydrocarbons "from salt and natural gas". This method had far-reaching
consequences. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and
C2Cl4 became the
universal
solvents of the cleaning industry. Neither is flammable. The former was
combined with fluorine to make a refrigerant which was in general use
until recently.
Great Western merged with Dow Chemical Company in 1938. During his years
at Dow, Glenn made many trips up and down the west coast as a
recruiter.
Glenn commented in 1995 that his fondest memory was parking his Model A
Ford ten feet from his laboratory work bench. The public county road ran
through the center of the chemical plant, and there were no fences! His
worst memory: news of the mid-Atlantic sinking in 1942 of the first boat
load of critically-needed degreasing solvent sent to Britain.
Glenn retired in 1968, using much of his freed time to support
environmental causes. For example, he helped in re-establishing
river-bottom hardwood forests along the Mississippi River, contributed to
exhibits in the marine aquarium in Monterey, California, and supported
research on the mirgration of monarch butterflies.