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Robert Hart

Robert C. Hart

President, Tennessee Eastman Company (retired)

Education

  • B.S. 1947, Mechanical Engineering, University of Louisville

After graduating from the University of Louisville, Hart was employed by the Kentucky Inspection Bureau and later by North American Rayon Corporation in Elizabethton, Tennessee. In 1949, he enrolled in graduate school at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to study mechanical engineering. Hart left UT, however, in August of 1950 to accept a position with Tennessee Eastman Company.

Hart joined Tennessee Eastman as an assistant mechanical engineer and gained experience in equipment design, facilities design and operation, manufacturing, and administration management. In 1979, he became the sixth president of the Tennessee Eastman Company. Five years later, he was given additional responsibilities as president of Holston Defense Corporation. In 1990, Hart was named vice president of administration for Eastman Chemical Company, Eastman Kodak Company.

In 1983, Hart and Tennessee Eastman were able to design, build, and operate a “Chemicals from Coal” facility. That year, he received the Innovation in Coal Conversion Award from the chemical engineering department at the University of Pittsburgh and was recognized as a University of Louisville Distinguished Alumnus. The American Chemical Society has since designated that facility as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.

Hart was a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a senior member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He was a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers and Tau Beta Pi. In 1993, he received an honorary doctorate in Engineering Science from Milligan College.

He served on the board for King College in Bristol, the Northeast State Community College Foundation, the East Tennessee State Foundation, and the Sequoyah Council for the Boy Scouts of America Executive Board. For his service, Hart received the Silver Antelope from the Boy Scouts of America.

Hart had also been a board member for First Tennessee Bank of Kingsport/ Bristol, Tennessee, the Holston Valley Health Care Foundation, and the Greater Kingsport Chamber of Commerce. He served as section president of both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Instrument Society of America.