Ode Thomas Carlisle Jr.

Ode Thomas Carlisle, Jr., age 91, passed away on August 14, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born September 11, 1919, at Veach, Texas, a sawmill town in East Texas. His parents were Ode. T. Carlisle, Sr. and Orena Catherine Warwick. Ode, Jr. was preceded in death by his grandparents, parents, daughters Carol Jeanne (1947 – 1985) and Claire (1953 – 1958), and by his younger brother Jean Warwick Carlisle. He is survived by his loving wife of 65 years, Gloria Gardiner Carlisle; by daughter Catherine Carlisle Haas and son-in-law Thomas K. Haas of Duluth, GA; and by his nephew Jean Dudley Carlisle and family of Livingston, Texas.

Ode was raised in San Augustine County, and Livingston, Texas. Ode was born curious, especially about technical things. His father’s friends at the sawmill, including a blacksmith, became his mentors. He graduated from Livingston High School in 1936.

Ode’s high school teachers made sure that Ode would have access to a college education in engineering, and Ode chose chemical engineering, which he greatly enjoyed all of his long life. At The University of Texas, Ode was elected to four honor societies: Phi Eta Sigma; Phi Lambda Upsilon (chemistry); Omega Chi Epsilon (chemical engineering); and Tau Beta Pi (all engineering). He was appointed to a two-year term (1939-41) as student editor of the Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Industry. As an undergrad chemical engineering student Ode taught drafting, calculus, and machine design, the latter to aid technicians in the War effort. Ode’s senior chemical engineering design project was submitted to the Engineering Council for Professional Development, as part of the package requesting national accreditation for the UT Chemical Engineering Department. The department was accredited in 1943. In 1942 Ode received a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Hook ‘em Horns!

In 1942 the War Production Board directed all 1942 chemical engineering graduates in the U. S. to enter essential chemical industries, and directed all draft boards not to draft them. Ode reported for work at the Union Carbide chemicals plant at Texas City, Texas, on Galveston Bay, on June 8, 1942. Ode was assigned for a while to the Coast Guard in Galveston, where shrimp boats and private boats were used for patrolling during WWII due to planned German U-boat incursions in the area. The Germans wanted to disrupt oil shipments out of Texas.

While at Union Carbide in Texas City in the early 1940s, Ode’s career included management of the ethanol and ethyl ether production unit; training of what were believed to be the first group of women operators in a chemical plant; and managing repairs to buildings and equipment following the intense July, 1943 hurricane. In 1944 Ode was transferred to management of the isopropanol/acetone unit, where he sought improvements via experiments and a small pilot plant.

The surrender of Japan on August 16, 1945, ended WWII and the critical shortages of labor and materials in the chemical units. A Process Development Department was formed at Union Carbide. Ode led the design, construction, and operation for isopropanol, and the detailed process design for three new large-scale plants which operated for over fifty years.

Ode met and fell in love with Gloria Gardiner, a typist and the secretary to the Union Carbide plant manager. Ode and Gloria were married June 22, 1946, at Bunkie, LA. They lived in Galveston and later raised their family in La Marque, Texas.

On April 16, 1947, Ode was at work and became an eyewitness to the “Texas City Explosion” of the ship Grand Camp in the Texas City harbor, one of three ships in adjacent slips loaded with thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in paper bags. His vantage point was outside his office 3-1/2 miles away. He saw the shock wave expand from the explosion, which crushed people, smokestacks, cars, homes, and whole sections of the chemical plants above and below ground. The next morning at 1:15 a.m. a second loaded ship, the Wilson B. Keene, exploded. A few minutes later the third loaded ship, the High Flyer, also exploded. Casualties near the explosions were 512 killed and 3,000 wounded.

From 1948 throughout the 1950s, Ode organized and directed a program to measure and minimize the waste water effluents of every production unit in the Texas City and Seadrift plants.

In May 1957 Ode was named leader of the Plastics group after running the Chemicals group. In May 1958 Ode was named Superintendent of Process Development, and in 1966, Director of Process Development and Plant Laboratories. Ode also served as plant patent coordinator and curriculum advisor to the University of Houston chemical engineering department, and as advisor to the Texas A & M chemistry department. In 1971 Ode was named coordinator of Operations Improvement for the Texas City Plant.

In 1978, joined Hudson Engineering Corp as Senior Process Engineering Consultant. Ode served as lead process engineer for a large pilot plant near Alvin, TX, sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy, to evaluate the production of natural gas dissolved in geopressured geothermal salt water deposits in coastal areas of Texas and Louisiana. Ode also served as lead process engineer for a project to heat the VA hospital at Marlin TX using geothermal water from the Mexia-Luling-Talco fault.

In 1980, Ode joined Matthew Hall Engineering in Houston. In 1981 Ode redesigned the gas purification part of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Bontang on the east coast of Borneo, Indonesia. The new design gave an 86% increase in capacity and eliminated the problems of cooling the plant with sea water. Recent information indicates that the Bontang site now has the world’s largest LNG operation. During the years that Ode worked on the Indonesian projects he made three trips to the plant sites at Bontang, which he greatly enjoyed.

Ode was also assigned as lead engineer to prepare 100 new engineering, procurement, and construction specifications for the Exxon Santa Ynez project offshore from Santa Barbara, CA. At Matthew Hall, Ode also designed several sections of a plant at Tel Adas in northeastern Syria, to recover natural gas liquids from gas wells. Ode’s sections included gas gathering and a tetraethyl lead mixing facility to produce a low octane motor fuel. Ode retired from Matthew Hall in 1986 and consulted with Hudson Engineering for three more years.

In the late 1990s Ode was the prime witness in a lawsuit by twelve Union Carbide insurance companies, alleging Union Carbide had been negligent in the 1940s with respect to water pollution, 50 years after the alleged infractions. Ode presented from his notes and memory his effluents abatement work in the late 1940s and 1950s. Ode presented the Union Carbide case and Union Carbide won the lawsuit.

Ode was a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for over 65 years. He was also a member of the American Chemical Society.

From 1953 to 1977 Ode and Gloria were active members of the First Methodist Church in La Marque, Texas, and from 1977 to 2009 were members of the Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston. Ode’s hobbies were history, technology, photography, genealogy, maps, and woodworking. Ode and Gloria enjoyed Civil War history and trips to battlefields. He loved to play bridge. He and Gloria grieved the loss of their daughters Carol and Claire, and were very supportive of daughter Cathy’s musical, academic, and advertising career interests. Ode is especially missed by the Bettye and Leon Anhaiser extended family of Sugar Land Texas.

Cathy and Tom Haas want to thank the caregivers and staffs at Parc Duluth, Belmont Village in Johns Creek, and Altus Hospice for their kind efforts to help Ode and Gloria Carlisle. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday August 17, at North Springs United Methodist Church, 7770 Roswell Rd., Sandy Springs, 30350, phone 770-396-0844. The family will receive friends Tuesday evening 6:00 – 8:00 at Sandy Springs Chapel, 136 Mount Vernon Highway, Sandy Springs. Ode Carlisle will be buried in Houston, Texas.