{"id":24169,"date":"2021-09-10T11:37:21","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T15:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=24169"},"modified":"2021-09-10T11:37:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T15:37:21","slug":"from-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/from-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Wagener family\u2019s ties to Clemson date back to the University\u2019s very beginning<\/p>\n

Brothers Earl, Ben and Ken Wagener have ties to Clemson that run long and deep.
\nThe legacy began over 125 years ago when their maternal grandfather Benjamin Franklin Robertson deboarded at a whistle-stop train station and trekked a mile to the campus of the newly opened Clemson Agricultural College, where he was a member of the first graduating class in 1896.
\nTheir uncle Ben Robertson Jr. \u201923 wrote for Clemson\u2019s student newspaper and served as editor-in-chief of the yearbook his senior year before his career as a nationally known journalist and World War II correspondent. His Southern memoir Red Hills and Cotton \u2014 An Upcountry Memory<\/em> about growing up in Upstate South Carolina was first published in 1942 and is still in print today.
\nTheir mother, Hattie Boone Wagener, was a longtime administrative support staff member at Clemson in the College of Engineering and Science for about 25 years.
\nEarl and Ken Wagener followed in their grandfather\u2019s footsteps, earning Clemson degrees and becoming chemists.
\nThe family\u2019s four-generation Clemson legacy continued when Ken\u2019s son, David, earned his master\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering in 2003 and Earl\u2019s daughter, Emily, received her bachelor\u2019s degree in food technology and processing in 2012.
\n\u201cClemson has played an important part of our family\u2019s story for a long time,\u201d says Ken Wagener, whose wife, Margaret Monroe Wagener M \u201970, is also a Clemson alumna.
\nThe Wageners\u2019 Clemson story includes fire, floods, a single mother\u2019s perseverance and a village\u2019s collective helping hand.
\nHumble Beginning<\/strong>
\nAfter graduation, Benjamin Franklin Robertson began working as Clemson\u2019s first state chemist.
\nFrom his lab on campus, he analyzed soil samples and tested fertilizer from across the state to ensure the proportions of ingredients in bags of fertilizer matched the labels on the bags. He came up with what the nation\u2019s agricultural chemists called the Robertson method to differentiate the various forms of nitrogen in fertilizer, according to a 1973 article in South Carolina magazine chronicling his 50 years at Clemson. He was also named the state toxicologist, which required him to testify in murder trials whether somebody was poisoned to death, the article said. Twice he received death threats.
\nHis agriculture lab evolved into Clemson\u2019s chemistry department.
\n\u201cHe created a couple of chemistry courses, basic undergraduate courses,\u201d Earl Wagener says. \u201cIt was clearly the beginning of the chemistry department.\u201d
\nWhile he was an accomplished chemist, not all of Robertson\u2019s experiments were successful.
\n\u201cAs we understand it, he set up an experiment, and it went wrong and caught the building on fire,\u201d Earl says, noting details are scarce. He\u2019s not sure his grandfather ever admitted his connection to the fire that occurred in the 1920s.
\nFollowing in Their Grandfather\u2019s Footsteps<\/strong>
\nEarl and Ken Wagener followed in their grandfather\u2019s footsteps, in both their successful chemistry careers and lab mishaps.
\nThis spring, Ken Wagener received the 2021 American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry for his significant contributions to both industry and academia. Chemical & Engineering News<\/em> credits Ken, a professor at the University of Florida and director of the Center for Macromolecular Science and Engineering, with pioneering the acyclic diene metathesis polymerization, which launched an entirely new field of synthetic polymer chemistry.
\nEarl Wagener led one of Clemson University\u2019s most successful startup companies.
\nThey are both members of the Thomas Green Clemson Academy of Engineering and Science, the only set of brothers to do so.
\nWhile their grandfather helped advance chemistry at Clemson, he doesn\u2019t get any credit for influencing his grandsons\u2019 career choices.
\nFor Earl, that credit goes to D.W. Daniel High School chemistry teacher Mabel Richardson: \u201cShe was the guiding light for me. She was funny. She was brilliant. She just loved chemistry, and I picked up on her love for it. I found that I really enjoyed it.\u201d
\nEarl earned his Bachelor of Science in 1962 and his Ph.D. in 1967, although there was a moment of doubt during commencement whether he\u2019d actually get his hood from Dean Howard Hunter.
\nThe Flood<\/strong>
\nYears earlier, Earl Wagener\u2019s lab on the fourth floor of Brackett Hall flooded when a condenser broke. Eventually, the water made it down to Hunter\u2019s office on the first floor.
\nThe following day, when Earl arrived on campus, the other professors from the fourth floor tried to get his attention and warn him to leave before the dean spotted him. It was too late. Hunter saw Earl and said, \u201cI\u2019d like you to come into my office.\u201d
\nWhen they got there, all the dean\u2019s photos and awards that had been hanging on the wall of his office were on the floor and floating in two inches of water.
\nFast forward to commencement.
\n\u201cEverybody knew the story,\u201d Earl says. \u201cSo, he put the hood over my head and then looked over at the audience and pulled it back. When he did put the hood over me, everybody was clapping and cheering. He and I had an interesting relationship.\u201d
\nAfter receiving his Ph.D., Earl spent 25 years developing new products at Dow Chemical and 10 years as vice president of research and development at Stepan, a specialty chemical products maker.
\nBack Home<\/strong>
\nIn 2001, Earl Wagener returned to Clemson and became CEO of Tetramer Technologies, a company started by a group of University professors. The Pendleton, South Carolina, company researches, develops and manufactures advanced materials and specialty chemicals.
\nEarl says most of the company\u2019s employees are Clemson graduates and many hold Ph.D.\u2019s, something that he finds especially gratifying.
\n\u201cWhen I graduated with a Ph.D. in the 1960s, I struggled to find a job in South Carolina,\u201d he says. He landed a job with Milliken but was laid off when the company downsized just three weeks later. To get his next job, he had to move to Midland, Michigan.
\n\u201cAt Tetramer, we have hired around 20 Ph.D.-level scientists, so we\u2019ve created jobs for Ph.D.\u2019s. in Upstate, South Carolina. That\u2019s a particular point of pride for me,\u201d Earl explained. While there, he co-taught a class designed to help graduate and undergraduate science and engineering students successfully enter industry.
\nEarl says he tried to talk his youngest brother out of pursuing a chemistry career.
\n\u201cI ran into a professor named Harvey Hobson in physical chemistry,\u201d he says. \u201cKen was considering chemistry at the time. I strongly told him to find another career. I told him, \u2018Physical chemistry is very hard, and you will not pass it.\u2019 You can tell how smart he was. He ignored me entirely.\u201d
\nThere was a time when Ken, who is six years younger than Earl, actually thought chemistry wasn\u2019t the career for him because he wasn\u2019t an outstanding student. Organic chemistry changed that.
\n\u201cI found something I liked \u2014 and I still like it,\u201d Ken says.
\nHomeschooled<\/strong>
\nThe middle Wagener brother, Ben, says Ken owes his career in chemistry partly to him.
\n\u201cWhen I was taking chemistry at Daniel High School, I set up a lab in the attic of our home, and I had Ken and another person be the students,\u201d Ben says. \u201cI set up experiments I learned from my chemistry class. I gave them a test and posted their grades right outside the door. There\u2019s no doubt Earl had a lot of influence, but I can say that I helped start Ken on his career in chemistry.\u201d
\nAfter receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Florida, Ken Wagener went to work for Dutch company Akzo Nobel\u2019s American Enka Company plant in Asheville, North Carolina. He served as technical director of Membrana, Inc., an internal startup company that created the blood oxygenator used in heart-lung machines.
\nWhile he worked for American Enka Company, he taught organic and polymer chemistry as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville and discovered he enjoyed it. He returned to the University of Florida and has been on the faculty since 1986.
\nHis Turn<\/strong>
\nKen Wagener had a similar experience to his brother\u2019s with a fourth-floor laboratory and a flood.
\nOne morning, he saw a fire truck in front of the building. \u201cThat was somewhat concerning,\u201d he sayds. He took the elevator to the fourth floor. When he got out, he saw firefighters coming out of his lab.
\n\u201cThat was concerning for sure.\u201d
\nWater from a condenser in his lab had made its way to the first floor, which housed a Northeastern computer system for the state of Florida, \u201cand we were about to put it out of business.\u201d
\nLab accidents aside, Ken has accumulated his fair share of awards and accolades. While the recognition is nice, he says, helping students matters to him the most.
\n\u201cAwards for academics are just a way of doing business,\u201d he says. \u201cThe awards help get students jobs and increase the visibility for a group of people, so they\u2019re good to get. It\u2019s fun to get the award, but they fade pretty quickly. The thing that I\u2019m most happy with my work down here is that every person who has gone through our research group has a job. Some have retired, but they all got jobs.\u201d
\nAt chemistry conferences, Earl Wagener says he\u2019s often introduced as Ken\u2019s brother.
\n\u201cI know where I am in the pecking order,\u201d Earl sayds.
\nIt Takes a Village<\/strong>
\nBen Wagener is the only of the three who did not pursue a career in chemistry and did not attend Clemson. Instead, he entered the ministry, thanks mainly to Clemson First Baptist Church pastor Charles Arrington. Arrington was a father figure to Ben after the Wageners moved back to Clemson and the family home on Sloan Street after the death of Fred Wagener, Hattie\u2019s husband and the Wagener boys\u2019 father. Hattie, known as \u201cBoonie,\u201d never remarried. She took a job as an administrative assistant at Clemson, making $2,200 a year.
\n\u201cWe lived in the family home on Sloan Street, so we didn\u2019t have to worry about that, but Mom struggled to raise a family on that amount of money,\u201d Earl Wagener says. \u201cAll of us got jobs in the town. The whole concept of it takes a village is so true. Ben, Ken and I all got jobs. I worked in the cotton fields, in various places. We became aware as we grew up that people were taking care of Boonie\u2019s boys.\u201d
\nThe Wagener brothers started the Hattie B. Wagener Endowed Memorial Administrative Award in memory of their mother and to recognize the invaluable contributions administrative assistants make to the College of Science and the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.
\n\u201cMom always said, \u2018This guy has a Ph.D., and he\u2019s the dumbest guy I\u2019ve ever seen in my life. I tell you, if we didn\u2019t know how to run the University, the University would go nowhere,\u2019\u201d Earl continues. \u201cAnd that\u2019s right. We wanted to raise awareness of how much real work the admins do.\u201d
\nHattie Wagener left administrative work to teach, first at the preschool Head Start program and then at T.L. Hanna and Westside high schools in Anderson, South Carolina, teaching secretarial science.
\nThe Value of Education<\/strong>
\n\u201cI believe the only real education is continuing education,\u201d says Ben Wagener, who attended Furman and eventually earned a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.
\nHe says his career choice compliments and doesn\u2019t conflict with that of his brothers.
\n\u201cScience and religion are very compatible, although it seems to many people that they are at odds with each other. We lose on both sides if we deny one or the other,\u201d he says.
\nThat doesn\u2019t stop the teasing, though.
\n\u201cThey tease me I\u2019m the black sheep of the family because there are so many scientists and chemists,\u201d Ben says. \u201cOne day, Earl asked me teasingly, \u2018How can you work for someone you can\u2019t see?\u2019 That\u2019s a good question. My comment to that is that God is beyond our grasp but within our reach.\u201d
\nHe says that while the brothers take their work seriously, they like to have fun, too, and the banter between them makes that obvious.
\n\u201cWe enjoy being brothers. We\u2019ve stayed close since the 1950s. Before the pandemic hit, the three of us would get together in Asheville, North Carolina, for a weekend every year, just the three brothers, because we have so much fun together,\u201d Ken Wagener says.
\nWhile the brothers\u2019 close relationship hasn\u2019t changed over the years, they realize that\u2019s not true of the Clemson in which they grew up.
\n\u201cThe town and the University were much smaller,\u201d Ken says. \u201cIt was a great educational environment and living environment. Everyone knew everyone, and as a result, we had a really good life growing up and getting an education in Clemson. That\u2019s been a part of me forever.\u201d
\nBen Wagener sums up Clemson\u2019s effect on his family:
\n\u201cClemson, both the University and the town, is a huge, wonderful gift for each one of us.\u201d
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brothers Earl, Ben and Ken Wagener have ties to Clemson that run long and deep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":24221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26,8],"tags":[159,174,1197,1205],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-24169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifelong-tigers","category-my-clemson","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-stories","tag-fall-2021","tag-fall-2021-lifelong-tigers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/09\/From-the-Beginning.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24169"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=24169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}