Contact: Sammy McDavid
Will D. Carpenter
A Mississippi State graduate, retired chemical manufacturing executive and honored adviser on chemical weapons issues will deliver the university's 1999 commencement address.
Will D. Carpenter, a 1952 agronomy graduate, will speak May 13. A Moorhead native, he is the retired vice president and general manager of new products at the Monsanto Co.
More than 1,900 MSU students are candidates for degrees at the conclusion of the spring semester. Graduation exercises begin at 1:15 p.m. in Humphrey Coliseum.
Mississippi State has honored Carpenter on two earlier occasions. In addition to having an annual biotechnology lecture series named in his honor, the university invited him to serve as executive-in-residence for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
On the day following his MSU address, the Chesterfield, Mo., resident will be in Indiana to receive an honorary doctorate from Purdue, where he earned master's and doctoral degrees in plant physiology.
Joining St. Louis-based Monsanto in 1958, he progressed rapidly through the administrative ranks, holding leadership positions in the agricultural division, market and product development, and corporate environmental policy, among others.
In the late 1980s, he gained international recognition as the founder of a Chemical Manufacturers Association committee that advised United States negotiators at an international conference to ban chemical weapons. He had a key role in writing what some have called "the most complex treaty in human history."
For his efforts, the American Association for the Advancement of Science named him its 1992 co-recipient of the Hilliard Roderick Prize in Science, Arms Control and International Security.
Still active in efforts to control weapons of mass destruction, he is co-chair of the Science Advisory Board of the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and a board member of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, among other commitments.