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JACOB M
1921-1991
GEIST
BY P. L. THIBAUT BRIAN
jACOB M. GElST died on March 22, 1991, at the age of sixty-nine.
Thus encled the brilliant career of a chemical engineer who
made major contributions in the field of cryogenics.
lack Geist's career included both academic and industrial
experience, but his principal contributions were made during
his twenty-seven years at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. Dr.
Geistwas a prolific contributor to the company's development of
processes for the separation of air and the liquefaction of its
products, the production of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium,
and the liquefaction of natural gas. He played a major role in the
design of more than one hundred large-scale process plants
embodying these technologies with total installed capital cost
exceeding $1 billion. He was also a major contributor to process
safety in the cryogenics industry, especially in the storage of
liquefied natural gas.
Jack Geist was born on February 2, 1921, in Bridgeport,
Connecticut. After attending Newark College of Engineering
the first year, he attended Purdue University, graduating in 1940
with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering. He then entered
Pennsylvania State University, where he received the M.S. c3 egree
in 1942. After spending the nextyear as an instructor in chemical
engineering at Penn State, he took a position with Publicker
Alcohol Company in July of 1944. Three months later he entered
the U.S. Army as an enlisted man in the infantry and chemical
41
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42
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
warfare service. After attending Officer Candidate School, he
reached the rank of second lieutenant in the chemical warfare
service, assigned to Edgewood Arsenal. In February 1946, Jack
was discharged from the Army and entered the University of
Michigan to pursue his doctorate. It was here that he had the
privilege of working intimately with Professor G. G. Brown, an
experience that greatly influenced Jack's approach to engineer-
ing and engineering professionalism throughout his career. Jack
finished up the workfor his Ph.D. in chemical engineering atthe
University of Michigan in 1950 ~ the degree was granted in 1951 ~
andjoined the Chemical Engineering Department at Massachu-
setts Institute Technology, where he was an instructor and then
assistant professor from 1950 to 1952. After spending the next
three years as senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the
Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Jack returned to the
United States and joined Air Products in November of 1955.
At that time Air Products was a fifteen-year-old start-up com-
pany in the industrial gas business, just beginning to experience
success in developing its founder's concept of the on-site oxygen
plant and to establish a position in the production and clistribu-
tion of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen. Air Products had
revenues of approximately $10 million, net income of approxi-
mately $800,000 and about 700 employees. During the next
twenty-seven years, Air Products grew to become a major interna-
tional inclustrial gas companywith 1982 revenues of $1.5 billion,
net income of $170 million, anc} almost 19,000 employees. Jack
Geist was a major contributor to the technologies that fueled
that growth.
Jack participated in all phases of the technology effort at Air
Products. He had assignments in research and clevelopment,
process engineering, plant start-up, and engineering technol-
ogy development and assessment. Jack's education was in chemi-
cal engineering, but he had a flair for mechanical engineering
and for equipment manufacturing, and he contributed many
key ideas to these areas.
Jack's innovative contributions began almost immediately
after hisjoining Air Products. As head of the technology diversi-
fication group in research and development, he used his heat
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JACOB M. GEIST
43
transfer and mechanical engineering skills to develop the world's
smallest cryogenic refrigerator. It was less than two inches in
length, had a cool-down time of thirty seconds, and delivered 0.2
watts of refrigeration at liquid nitrogen temperatures. About
30,000 of them were sold to enhance the signal quality of
infrared sensors, and this became a key product in the new
Advanced Products Division of Air Products. Jackwas at ease with
both the production technicians and the research engineers.
~ack's most important contribution to Air Products was in the
field of liquefied natural gas. When a new, proprietary propane
precooled MCR™ process with its large coil-wound heat ex-
changer was developed by Air Products, Jack's contribution
covered the range from the fundamental heat and mass transfer
correlations used in the design of these heat exchangers to their
mechanical integrity and manufacturing simplicity and to opti-
mum plant operation in the field. The exchangers are the
world's largest, some weighing in excess of two hundred tons,
containing a thousand miles oftubing, and capable of liquefying
up to three hundred million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
When one of the early liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants was
installed in Brunei, Jack quickly recognized that although the
plant met all guarantees, it did not meet its full potential.
Working closely with the operators in the field and Ph.D. engi-
neers in Allentown, Jack probed deeply into the process, the
fundamental heat transfer and mass transfer, and the mechani-
cal configurations of these exchangers. The result of his efforts
was a 20 percent improvement in productivity for that particular
plant, a greater insight into multicomponent, multiphase heat
and mass transfer in these exchangers, and innovative design
changes in the main cryogenic heat exchanger that led to
significant cost reduction and simplification. His was a key
contribution to Air Products achieving a 90 percent worldwide
market share as a process licenser and heat exchanger supplier
in the baseload LNG business. Concurrentwith his efforts on the
LNG process was his contribution to the safety of LNG storage
and transportation. In collaboration with colleagues at Air
Products, Jack became the definitive expert in LNG storage
safety.
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
During his career at Air Products, the type of contributions
that Jack macle in LNG were repeated many times over in plants,
such as air separation and liquefaction, hydrocarbon reforming,
liquid hydrogen and helium production, and specialty gases
manufacturing. He worked on innumerable plants in the United
States, Western Europe, Latin America, and the Far East.
lack Geist was an intellectual leader and a mentor. Through
him many young engineers and scientists learned about plant
and equipment design philosophy, safety philosophy, the impor-
tance of both plant experience and engineering fundamentals,
and the importance of aciciressing new technology details right
up front instead of after a problem occurs. He recruited and
mentored many of the engineers who went on to form the
backbone of the company's technology team. This speaks elo-
quently of ~ack's greatest strength that of a teacher.
In 1982 lack took early retirement from Air Products and
formed his own consulting firm, GeistTec, Geist Technology and
Engineering Company. Air Products was one of his major con-
sulting clients, but he also served a number of other companies
with his expertise in process design and development and in
engineering safety. He continued his active involvement in
professional organizations such as the American Institute of
Chemical Engineers, the International Institute of Refrigera-
tion, and the international LNG conferences.
Dr. Geist's contributions to the engineering profession have
been widely acclaimed. He was elected honorary fellow of the
Indian Cryogenics Council in 1975 and was named Institute
Laureate of the International Institute of Refrigeration. He
received the Awarc! in Chemical Engineering Practice given by
the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 1976,
and AIChE also electecI him a fellow in 1975. Dr. Geist was
elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in
1980, and he was elected a fellow of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science in 1984. He received an Honorary
Doctorate of Science from the Technion, Israel Institute of
Technology, in 1987.
Jack Geist made a lasting impact on the cryogenics industry
and on the chemical engineering profession. He will long be
remembered and missed by his many friends and colleagues.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
natural gas
