Charles Lee Reese (1862-1940) was the first director of DuPont's Eastern Laboratory and later the company's centralized research department, the Chemical Department. Reese earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Virginia in 1884 and two years later a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He returned to America, struggled professionally for 13 years as a chemistry instructor, then in 1899 took a position as an industrial chemist with the New Jersey Zinc Company. Reese soon attracted the attention of DuPont executives J. Amory Haskell and Hamilton Barksdale, who were seeking an able manager to organize and head a new explosives research laboratory. In 1902 they named Reese as the first director of Eastern Laboratory, one of the country's first pioneering industrial research laboratories.
In the following years, Reese built a first-class research organization and spearheaded the development of low-freezing dynamites and "permissible" explosives for use in combustible mining environments. Reese's success at Eastern Laboratory led to his appointment as the first director of DuPont's new Chemical Department in 1911, where he worked diligently to centralize the company's several research operations. In 1917 he was elected to DuPont's Board of Directors. After World War I Reese's centralized research structure failed to meet the needs of the company's expanding, diversified businesses, and in 1921 a company-wide reorganization authorized those businesses to establish their own research labs using Chemical Department personnel. Reese remained the nominal director of what remained of the centralized Chemical Department until his retirement in 1924. He continued working as a chemical consultant at DuPont until 1930, and remained on the company's Board of Directors until his death in 1940.
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