1994
William H. Joyce
1957 B.S. Chemical Engineering

As president and chief operating officer of Union Carbide, William H. Joyce heads a multinational corporation with more than 300 manufacturing and distribution facilities and laboratories. As leader of a technology development and commercialization team, he was recently awarded the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest award for technology achievement, by President Clinton. The award recognized his role in the creation and commercialization of Unipol, a process for making polyethylene, the world's most widely used plastic.

Dr. Joyce joined Union Carbide in 1957 as an engineer at the corporation's chemical facility in Bound Brook, New Jersey, and has been primarily associated with the corporation's chemicals and plastics business throughout his career. He served in a variety of technical, marketing and administrative positions in plastics products before moving to the corporate staff in 1968. He was named a product manager in the corporation's Chemicals and Plastics Group in 1971, and, three years later, operations manger for high density polyethylene. He became director of polyolefins operations in 1976. The next year Dr. Joyce was named director of planning, licensing and financial control for the newly created Polyolefins Division, with responsibility to develop the Unipol polyethylene process.

In 1978, he became vice-president of marketing/licensing and in 1979, vice-president-licensing/technology for the Polyolefins Division. In 1982, he became president of the Silicones and Urethane Intermediates Division, and in 1985, president of the Polyolefins Division. With the corporation's restructuring in 1992, Dr. Joyce became executive vice-president responsible for operations. He was elected to Union Carbide's board of directors in 1992 and elected president and chief operating officer in 1993.

Dr. Joyce is immediate past chair of the Society of Plastics Industry and holds several patents in the plastics field. He is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society of Plastics Engineers, and Beta Gamma Sigma.

Current as of 1994

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