John Gray was a world-class scientist and engineer with a distinguished career as a chemist. His career began in January 1949 when he joined Dearborn Chemical as a laboratory technician. He retired as senior vice-president in 1994. John was selected in 2003 by the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) as an accomplished, 50-year contributor to the chemical profession. In 1994, he formed a corrosion consulting firm, John Gray & Associates, and served as senior water conditioning consultant for GE Betz in Trevose, PA.
John served as President of IDEA in 1991 and also served as a member of its Board of Directors. He was a beloved and regular attendee of IDEA conferences since 1967.
John presented many technical papers on industrial water conditioning in Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia. He was a member of the National Association of Corrosion Engineers and holds patents on his boiler sludge conditioner, a closed water corrosion inhibitor and a neutral pH, non-corrosive rust remover. He was awarded the prestigious Norman R. Taylor award by IDEA in 1994 for his distinguished achievements in district energy.
If you attend an IDEA conference, you might see (and might be given) a badge with the image of an apple on it. This is another amazing contribution from John, given to first-time attendees of any IDEA conference to let you know that, 'you are the apple of our eye' and as you can see from the photo to the left with his trusty, old-school apple peeler, John truly meant it.