Although he lived in town, his father owning a general merchandise store, the family, like all others in that town, had horses, cows, and a pig or two. It was his ambition. When he was almost twelve, he was thwarted in his ambitions by his father's selling out and the family moving to Santa Rosa, where habits and interests changed. His greatest interest now lay in hunting, fishing, and climbing mountains. In 1917, he entered the College of the Pacific, thinking that he would learn to play the cello there and in a year or two transfer to the University of California to get a degree in agriculture.
Plans have a way of changing, however.
He never did learn to play the cello. After three years of taking all of the chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, and botany that the college offered, he transferred to Stanford to get a B.A. degree in chemistry. The following year he took a Ch. E. degree and obtained his first job in the Engineering Department of the Standard Oil Company of California, After a year there, he was invited to teach chemistry at the College of the Pacific and remained-there, except for the year in Germany, until 1931, when be moved to the University of Illinois to teach chemical .engineering. Four years later he was enticed away from the ivory towers to the Norton Company, the world's largest manufacturer of abrasives and abrasive products.