Motard
Rodolphe L. “Rudy” Motard, PhD, professor of chemical engineering and chairman from 1978-1991 of the chemical engineering department in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, died April 23, 2011, surrounded by his family in south St. Louis County, Mo. He was 85.
Motard, who first was introduced to digital computers in 1956 — the dawn of the computer age — was a leader in the application of computers to chemical process design.
Motard earned a bachelor’s degree at Queen’s University in Canada (1947) and a master’s degree and doctorate (1948, 1952), both at Carnegie Mellon University, all in chemical engineering.
In 1951, he joined the Shell Oil Co., where he studied the catalytic cracking of petroleum and helped design major commercial refineries.
In 1957, he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Houston, with a joint appointment as associate director of the university’s computer center. There, he initiated research in computer applications, such as process simulation, process dynamics, modeling and process optimization.
He also helped organize the systems engineering program, which he directed, and founded the process simulation laboratory at the University of Houston.
Tapped by WUSTL in 1978, he became the sixth chair of the chemical engineering department.
“Rudy, who was a top-notch scientist, was also a very considerate and thoughtful human being who was liked by all his colleagues,” says Milorad P. Dudukovic, PhD, the Laura and William Jens Professor of Environmental Engineering and director of the Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory in the School of Engineering.
“During Rudy’s 17 years as chairman of the department, he did all he could to promote his faculty and protect them. As chairman, he was soft-spoken and believed in consensus, not fiats,” Dudukovic says.
In 1996, Motard was named a senior professor in the engineering school. In this capacity he continued to do research in process synthesis and database mining until 2006.
Motard’s computer program CHESS (Chemical Engineering Simulation System) was used worldwide to teach chemical engineering design and was the basis for a major commercial package in the field of process analysis. He was a charter founder of the CACHE Corporation, a nonprofit association of faculty dedicated to the promotion of digital computation in chemical engineering education.
In June 1992, Motard was named a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
“He was truly dedicated to the education of students and the discovery of new ways to do things via research,” Dudukovic says. “In 1978, while I was at a conference out of town, a colleague told me our new chairman Rudy had just became a multi-millionaire because a court had ruled that a company peddling some software had infringed on CHESS, his first computer-aided design program.
“When I returned to St. Louis, I went to see Rudy and asked why he hadn’t told us he had become a multi-millionaire! Rudy smiled and replied, ‘Mike, there was nothing to announce as the judge overruled that verdict. I am not getting a penny, but only the satisfaction that we were pioneers in this field.’
“For Rudy, it was all about the excitement of discovery, not the monetary awards,” Dudukovic says.
Although he had many peer-reviewed publications, he particularly was proud of a two-page cartoon describing a new mathematical technique he had devised to detect corrosion. The cartoon, by Larry Gonick, an artist much loved by scientists, appeared in the magazine Discover in April 1996.
The funeral service was held April 26 at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Church in south St. Louis County. Motard was buried in the cemetery of St. Mary’s, a little historical church in Praha, Texas, close to the family farm.
Motard is survived by Coreen, his wife of 63 years of south St. Louis County; his daughter, Louise Haines (Robert) of St. Louis; three sons, Mark (Kathryn), Paul (Donna) and John (Anita), all of Texas; four grandchildren; and three great grandchildren. Motard was the oldest of seven children (all born in Canada) and is survived by two sisters, Jeannine Chouinard (Laurent) and Elaine Edmison, along with many nieces and nephews.