Herschel H. Cudd

Who was Herschel H. Cudd?

Hershel Herbert Cudd was the director of the Georgia Institute of Technology's Engineering Experiment Station from 1952 to 1954, succeeding Gerald Rosselot in that position. He would later become the president of Amoco Chemical Company and serve on the board of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

Cudd was initially a part-time instructor of chemistry and a state liquor board chemist. Cudd quickly attained jobs as a research chemist at E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Inc, the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation, and then the West Point Manufacturing Company, focusing on inorganic chemistry, the development of synthetic materials, and the head of a textile engineering plant.

From there, he was the director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute, where he created a solution to a long-standing debate about the role of research engineers in a tenure system and significantly increased the number of researchers. He would then lead or hold a leadership role in several oil companies, including American Viscose Corporation, AviSun Corporation, Sun Oil Company, and finally Amoco Chemical Corporation; Cudd would be president of the latter from 1963 to 1974.