Reginald Robert Baxter

May 14, 1925 to March 29, 2022

Reginald R. “Barney” Baxter was born on May 14, 1925 in Cushman Arkansas, a manganese mining town with a population of 425 - all served well by the Baxter General Store. He entered the University of Arkansas in 1942 studying chemical engineering. In 1944, he was drafted by the US Army and tested into the Army Specialized Training Program - a group that would focus on enhancing radar capability to the point where our radar could detect a distant U-boat periscope before it could get within range of a US vessel to launch a torpedo. The program’s success saved many US lives. He then returned to finish his degree at the University of Arkansas and went on to get a masters in chemical engineering at Iowa State University. His first job was with American Oil Company as a refinery process engineer charged with, among other things, improving an old model catalytic cracking unit. His next move was to Standard Oil of New Jersey and 7 years in Cartagena, Barrancabermeja and Bogota, Columbia, building a new refinery and improving the operation of the existing Columbian owned refinery (another old model catalytic cracking unit to bring to better efficiency.) Later, he was charged with designing, building and achieving full rated capacity a fertilizer plant in Bogota. With a couple of stops in between, he then, in 1971, became CEO of CF Industries, then in Long Grove, Illinois, and then the largest supplier of fertilizers to farmers in the US and Canada. It was during this time that he met his wife, Jamie, and they were married in 1976. In the late 1980s he became CEO of Nimbus Medical, a medical device company that successfully developed a heart pump to assist with a failing heart condition. In 1991, he became the CEO and then full owner of ASHTA Chemicals Inc., a chloro-alkali facility in Ashtabula, Ohio, retiring in 2011 having sold the company to an enterprise located in Monterey, Mexico. Throughout this time, he and Jamie traveled extensively and he served on public and private corporate boards as well as several non-profit boards. In 2010, he and Jamie moved to Lost Tree Village in North Palm Beach where he successfully took up oil painting, enjoyed work with the Lost Tree Foundation, gave many hours to his lifelong love of golf and then wrote his excellent memoire - 385 pages titled A Bountiful Harvest. A paragraph on the last page reads:

“‘And so, the time has come….’ I leave with these thoughts. A life well spent is one of purpose, it leaves the space you have occupied and traveled better than when you first encountered it. It nourishes empathy and both an understanding of and response to the situation of others, and it is marked by caring and concern. A life well spent understands gratitude and I am deeply grateful for all of the opportunities I have been given to live a good life.”

Barney was predeceased by his brother Shelby Dean Baxter. He is survived by his son, Sean and his wife Amy, Whitney and Russell Conard and his granddaughter, Maddy, his Goddaughter, Terry, an important extended family including many nieces and nephews and his wife of 46 years, Jamie

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to Lost Tree Foundation, 8 Church Lane, North Palm Beach 33408 or to the charity of your choice.