Publication: Canadian Chemical News
Date: Saturday, September 1 2001
In 2001, nine members of The Chemical Institute of Canada mark 50 years of consecutive membership (1951-2001). We are proud to print the personal profiles provided by eight of those members below.
Harald W. Krusche, MCIC was born in Lodz, Poland in 1909. He studied chemical engineering at Danzig (Gdansk) and Lwow before World War II, after which he received a master's degree from London's Imperial College. In the war, Krusche was a Polish cavalry officer who escaped a German POW camp by rowing from Denmark to Sweden to rejoin Polish forces in Great Britain. From there, he emigrated to Canada under the British Resettlement Plan.
Krusche helped pioneer the first Canadian propane plant at Turner Valley. In 1952, he joined Celanese in the building of its grassroots Edmonton plant as a superintendent of the secondary oxidation unit (acetaldehyde into acetic acid) and of the utility distillation unit (acetates, etc.). Highlights of Krusche's career with Celanese include his adaptation of an aldoling process directly from laboratory work into production units, and the invention and installation of a heating system to make possible the production of a heavy denier acetate filament for cigarette tow. In 1968, Krusche became the first pollution control engineer for the City of Edmonton, AB introducing the first decibel-based anti-noise bylaw. Many skating rinks in Canada and abroad were temporarily closed when the Big Zamboni was diagnosed as the cause of CO poisoning of skaters! He represented the CIC on the first Alberta advisory councils on pollution control. Now retired, he sails his 42' sloop, and advises his son, Jack, a chemical engineering consultant.
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