Larry E. Erickson Autobiography

Chapter 1. Early Years

I was born on October 8, 1938 and given the name Larry Eugene Erickson. My parents, Conrad and Laurene Erickson, were both born in the same community, which included Wahoo and Swedeburg, Nebraska. My father was a farmer, who farmed land that had been previously farmed by his grandfather, Johannes (John) and father, Anton. My mother was a wife, mother, cook, and home maker. My grandfather, Anton was 6 when he came with his parents and others from Sweden in 1869. All my grandparents were born in Sweden and came to Nebraska. My parents and grandparents are all buried in the Grace Lutheran Cemetery next to Grace Lutheran Church, which is near Swedeburg, Nebraska. My mother had a brother and 6 sisters; my father had 2 brothers and a sister. Howard and I grew up with many cousins.

My older brother, Howard, was born on March 16, 1936, in Wahoo, Nebraska. We both attended District 71, a rural one room elementary school that had 8 grades. At age 5, I began my formal education in first grade. My parents were supportive of our education. My father was elected to the school board and did what he could to help hire good teachers. The school was about 2 miles from our home, and we rode our bicycles to school when the weather was good. The hot lunch program consisted of bringing a can of soup or other item that could be opened and heated for lunch at noon. The teacher was the only employee.

I was baptized as an infant at Grace Lutheran Church, a rural congregation, which my great-grandfather helped to establish in 1870. My family attended church regularly, and I attended Sunday School and summer Vacation Bible School from about age 5 until I was confirmed in 1953.

My education continued from grades 9-12 at Wahoo High School, where there were about 45 in my grade. I selected courses that would prepare me to go to college. I enjoyed athletics and participated in football, basketball, and track. I qualified to compete in the mile race at the state track meet my senior year. I was graduated from Wahoo High School in 1956 as valedictorian of my class. Wahoo High School is a good public school that includes George Beadle, who won a Nobel prize, and Howard Hanson, a famous musician and composer, among its alumni. While in high school, I had an international experience when I attended the very inspirational Lutheran youth event in Calgary, Canada.

Chapter 2. College Education

In 1956-57, I continued my education at Luther Junior College in Wahoo, Nebraska with the goal of making progress toward a B.S. degree with a chemical engineering major. I played basketball and enjoyed being an active member of the team. I lived at home and drove 8 miles each way to attend classes and participate in other activities.

My great-grandfather John Erickson helped to found Luther in 1884, and he was on the first board of directors. Luther included an academy (high school) and junior college. My brother Howard completed his first year of college at Luther and my parents attended Luther Academy for their high school education. Luther was supported by the Augustana Lutheran Church.

In the Fall of 1957, I continued my college education at Kansas State University because I needed to begin taking chemical engineering courses that were not offered at Luther College. I moved into Beta Sigma Psi Fraternity, a fraternity of Lutheran men where my brother was a member. The fraternity was a good place for me to live and learn. There were many opportunities to develop leadership skills and learn to work cooperatively with others.

I was encouraged by fraternity brothers to participate in the Lutheran Student Association and Sunday worship at First Lutheran Church. Campus ministry was well supported when I was a student, and there were non-credit classes on old testament, new testament, Martin Luther, and love and marriage that were available to attend. These classes were helpful for my spiritual and personal growth. At Luther College, there was a required course in Christian faith that was very beneficial, also.

I was able to attend many regional and national Lutheran student events that were inspirational and beneficial to my spiritual development. During this time period, there was strong national support for Lutheran campus ministry and there was an active Lutheran Student Association with national officers as well as local officers at K-State.

Kansas State University provided a good undergraduate education in chemical engineering for me. There was a strong emphasis on teaching, and most of the faculty were well qualified and effective teachers. There was a good program on professional development to help students grow in their understanding of chemical engineering career opportunities. I had the opportunity to work part time on a research project and begin to learn about applications of science and engineering.

In the summer after my junior year, I was awarded a scholarship to take two material science classes at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y. There were about 10 students in this special program. We were invited to participate in a research program to use testing and interest surveys to help guide individuals in their career planning. College teaching was one of the career paths that was recommended for me.

As I started my senior year, I had some interviews for employment and explored graduate study opportunities. Kansas State University offered me a National Defense Act Fellowship, which I accepted and used for the first three years of my graduate study. My timing was such that I was in the first class to use the new book, Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot. Because I was continuing my education at K-State, I was able to network and find many good courses to take as part of my graduate program of study. I was able to find a class on boundary layer behavior in mechanical engineering which was helpful for my PhD research on boundary layer behavior on moving continuous surfaces. Professor L.T. Fan introduced me to this topic and provided excellent guidance for my PhD research. I was encouraged to complete work for the PhD without earning the M.S. degree. In May of 1964, I was in the process of completing my PhD requirements, but not in time to participate in Spring commencement. My PhD was awarded in the summer of 1964.

Chapter 3. Early Faculty Years

Professor Fan left for Sabbatical leave in England in 1964, and I was appointed to a full-time faculty position to help while he was away. My duties included both teaching and research. The research included Dr. Fan's funded projects and the preparation of manuscripts related to my PhD research.

A new area of research was process optimization. Biochemical processes appeared to have many variables to optimize, and I became interested in fermentation processes and biological waste treatment. I applied for funding to spend one year working with Professor Arthur Humphrey at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The Public Health Service provided funding for my research as a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967-68. Ales Prokop from the Institute of Microbiology in Prague, Czechoslovakia arrived at about the same time that I did, and we worked together on our projects learning from each other. Ales had expertise in applied microbiology and was interested in biological tower reactors. I worked on microbial growth on hydrocarbons for production of protein. We attended Professor Humphrey's biochemical engineering class, also. Professor Humphrey provided leadership for the Third International Fermentation Symposium at Rutgers University, which provided an opportunity to attend and meet many leaders in teaching and research in this area of study.

After I returned to K-State in September 1968, I began teaching a biochemical engineering class and began working with graduate students on research topics related to biochemical and microbial processes. The research projects included environmental applications such as biological waste treatment. Topics related to food science and food engineering were of interest to me. I was a member of the food science graduate faculty as well as the chemical engineering graduate faculty. I was promoted to associate professor in 1968.

In order to give our students an opportunity to attend professional meetings related to biochemical engineering, I helped start annual student conferences on biochemical engineering. This involved annual meetings on a Saturday at K-State or one of the nearby universities. We also prepared manuscripts and published a proceedings. This annual event continued for more than 30 years. We traveled to Iowa State University, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Nebraska, University of Oklahoma, University of Colorado, and Colorado State University more than once to attend this event.

From 1970-1975 I was supported by a Public Health Service Research Career Development Award at K-State to conduct research in biochemical engineering and improve my abilities in areas at the interface of chemical engineering and microbiology. The research included investigations of tower systems for microbial growth and production of microbial protein from petroleum. I continued conducting research with Ales Prokop and traveled to Prague to help with data analysis and the preparation of manuscripts. Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet Union at that time. In 1972 I was promoted to full professor.

In 1975 I was a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 1 month. I attended some classes and presented some seminars.

Chapter 4. Biochemical Engineering

Because of significant interest in the production of microbial protein from petroleum, I was invited to participate in a US-USSR Cooperative Research Program in Microbiology. In 1977-78 I spent 5 months in the USSR in Pushchino, Russia and Riga, Latvia conducting biochemical engineering research and preparing manuscripts for publication. I was introduced to mass and energy balance regularities that were very useful in the analysis of experimental fermentation data. After returning to K-State I continued to apply these regularities in research and included them in teaching biochemical engineering. I made use of the published papers in teaching the concepts of data analysis with application of the regularities. During the next several years, I continued to work cooperatively with investigators in Russia and Latvia. I was able to receive research funding to investigate new problems using the regularities.

Mass transfer is an important topic in biochemical engineering and it is important in designing tower fermentors. Several graduate students worked with me on mass transfer in tower systems, some with motionless mixers and some with airlift designs. Larry Glasgow, a professor of chemical engineering, was interested in the multiphase conditions in tower fermentors, and we were able to work together in nurturing several graduate students who conducted research on bubble size distributions and hydrodynamics in tower systems.

In the fall semester of 1985, I was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley where I attended lectures and interacted with several faculty. I had accepted an invitation to prepare a handbook on anaerobic fermentations, and I began working on this project at that time. This was my first experience to serve as an editor of a book with many chapter authors. There was a very good library at the university, and this was very helpful as I searched the recent literature for potential authors. I had a very positive experience in Berkeley and enjoyed my stay there. After I returned to K-State, I continued my work on the book which was published in 1988.

Food science and engineering has been one of my areas of research and I have worked with graduate students who completed the PhD in the Food Science graduate program.

Chapter 5. Hazardous Substance Research

There was a major change in my responsibilities because of federal legislation related to hazardous substances and hazardous waste. The State of Kansas provided new funding to K-State to start a research program to address problems related to the management of hazardous substances and the remediation of contaminated sites. I was appointed director of the Office of Hazardous Waste Research at K-State. There was a great need for technologies and processes to address the problems that existed. While the initial funding was from Kansas, there were problems in many parts of the world. In the United States, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and Superfund presented challenges for industry and governments because new science and technology was needed to address some of the contamination issues. In 1986 K-State hosted the first of many Conferences on Hazardous Waste Research.

In 1988 the U.S. EPA invited proposals and five new Hazardous Substance Research Centers were established in 1989 following peer review competition. The K-State proposal was funded to set up the Great Plaines/Rocky Mountain Hazardous Substance Research Center with Montana State University, and the Universities of Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and Utah as participating partner universities. The new center was funded by U.S. EPA to serve research needs in EPA Regions 7 & 8. In order to serve more effectively, additional universities in Regions 7 & 8 were approved for membership in the consortium, and other organizations such as the U.S. Dept. of Energy were invited to provide funding for projects. The activities included an annual conference with a conference proceedings.

One of the significant developments has been the positive results from phytotechnology research in which plants are installed on contaminated sites and soil quality is improved using soil amendments such as compost to improve plant growth and soil health. The beneficial effects of vegetation in contaminated soil have resulted in the establishment of a global organization, the International Phytotechnology Society and the International Journal of Phytoremediation. Because of the low cost of phytotechnologies, there has been significant research, process development, and many applications in many parts of the world. Kansas

State University hosted the 12th International Phytotechnology Conference in Manhattan, September 27-30, 2015. The technology was implemented at the Riley County landfill because of contaminants leaching from the landfill into local water wells. Trees were planted to take up the contaminated water. This was very beneficial and reduced the cost of managing the site. For all of the research that was conducted, the benefits were estimated to be more than $10 for every dollar expended for research.

In 2013, K-State received funding from NATO to apply phytotechnologies at sites where there was contamination associated with military activities. Cooperative research was conducted with universities and research centers in the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, and Ukraine. An edited book, Phytotechnology with Biomass Production: Sustainable Management of Contaminated Sites, was published in 2021.

Technical assistance to communities and training have been part of the hazardous substance research center activities since federal funding began in 1989. K-State has been a national leader in providing technical assistance to communities that have brownfields.

Chapter 6. Sustainability and Sustainable Energy

My professional activities related to sustainability and sustainable development began about 2006 with the first Dialog on Sustainability, which has become an annual event at K-State to encourage sustainable development.

After funding was received from the National Science Foundation to support research related to sustainable energy through the research experiences for undergraduates program, I was involved with nurturing undergraduate students for 9 summers in research projects related to sustainability. I also began teaching a seminar class on sustainability. These activities resulted in the publication of two books by CRC Press: Solar Powered Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles: A Sustainable Development in 2017, and Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality: Two Interrelated Global Challenges in 2019.

In November 2024, a new book Sustainable Energy Pathways to Net Zero was published. This book is available online through open access from the publisher CRC Press.

Chapter 7. Transition to Part-time Employment

In 2004 at age 65, I made a change in my faculty appointment to reduce my classroom teaching and have part-time employment with respect to my salary. This continued until 2015 when I transitioned to emeritus professor and went off the payroll. I have continued to teach 3 seminar classes on hazardous waste engineering, sustainability, and air quality. I have also helped with some senior design projects. Much of my time since 2015 has been devoted to research and writing. I have enjoyed these activities, and I am thankful for the opportunities that I have had to continue to be an active member of the faculty.

The focus of my recent research and writing is related to sustainability and sustainable development. Environmental air quality is very closely related to emissions from combustion. The transition to electric vehicles is beneficial to air quality. The applications of phytoremediation where vegetation is established are beneficial to climate because of carbon sequestration that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Chapter 8. Other Projects

In my research related to environmental air quality, I worked with many others on a variety of projects. After chairing some sessions at the 237th National American Chemical Society meeting, we were invited to prepare an edited book containing 15 papers based on the presentations. I was the lead editor for the book Nanoscale Materials in Chemistry: Environmental Applications, which was published by the American Chemical Society as part of the ACS Symposium Series. These activities were completed to honor professor Kenneth Klabunde at K-State.

My research related to air quality included a project in Chicago, in which we worked with 3 urban communities and others to measure air quality that was associated with traffic and other emission sources. This research included racial justice and community empowerment. Ozone is one of the health concerns in Chicago and many other large cities. Ozone concentrations are higher on hot summer days when nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons are present in the air. The transition to electric vehicles has been beneficial in many urban communities that are working to improve air quality.

Chapter 9. Multidisciplinary Research

My research experiences have included many projects that have involved multidisciplinary teams of investigators. Dr. Lawrence Davis, who has expertise in plant biochemistry, has worked with me on several phytotechnology projects. In some of the projects, Ganga Hettiarachchi, a soil analytical chemist, has helped also. Early in the history of the Great Plaines/Rocky Mountain Hazardous Substance Research Center, we had a workshop to share knowledge about the beneficial effects of vegetation in contaminated soil. We also reviewed the literature to learn from others. Chemistry, microbiology, toxicology, soil science, plant science, and environmental engineering have been important in conducting phytoremediation research. It has been very beneficial to graduate students to have a supervisory committee that includes professionals with different areas of professional expertise.

Pravate Tuitemwong came to K-State to study toward the PhD degree in food science. His B.S. and M.S. education was in microbiology. Dr. Daniel Fung, a food microbiologist, and I served as his major professors. After Pravate completed work for his PhD, he returned to Bangkok, Thailand, where he was on the microbiology faculty. He invited our help with his students in the PhD program. This has included sending graduate students to Kansas State University as visiting scholars, participation on graduate committees, participation on research projects, and coauthors of manuscripts. This has been a successful partnership and beneficial to the students. We have also had several important papers published related to food safety associated with food pathogens in the last 10 years. My wife, Laurel and I have traveled to Bangkok as part of the cooperation.

Chapter 10. Successful Graduates

One of the joys of being a professor is being able to be helpful as students grow and learn to be productive citizens in a world where there is a great need for the skills that they have developed. Since many positive experiences happen outside the classroom, I have served as an advisor to Beta Sigma Psi, the social fraternity where I lived as an undergraduate student, and Tau Beta Pi, an engineering honorary organization. I have served as a board member of Lutheran Campus Ministry and the Alumni Chapter of Beta Sigma Psi.

Most graduates have had very good careers in industry, government, or in academic positions. A few have been self employed. Some international students have remained in the United States while others have returned to their native country. Some have had leadership positions in their organizations. I am very thankful for the services that they have provided.

Chapter 11. Other Activities

My wife Laurel and I met at square dance lessons. We have been square dancing together since 1980. We have attended state and national square dance conventions and served as officers for the Lone Wranglers and Kansas Square Dance Association.

I have attended First Lutheran Church since I came to Manhattan in 1957, and I have served as a member of the council and in other positions.

I have been an active member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and a number of other professional organizations. I have traveled to many professional meetings in many countries.

Chapter 12. Experience with Plug-in Toyota Prius

One very good experience that I have had began in August 2013 with the purchase of a Toyota Prius. I was interested in having some personal experience to better understand the transition to electric vehicles for my teaching, research and daily life. The 4.4 kWh battery has about 12 miles of all-electric range, which has worked well for us because my distance to work is one mile and many other trips are less than two miles. One of my enjoyable experiences has been to charge the battery going down a mountain. In 2024, after reaching 100,000 miles, I added up the gasoline that had been used and found that the gas mileage was 65.6 miles per gallon. Driving on electricity in Manhattan at about 3 miles/kWh costs about 4 cents/mile compared to 50 miles/gallon on the highway and about 6 cents/mile. We plug the car in at night to a 110 volt outlet. One benefit of the electric driving is that the car is still in very good condition. We have saved money because we are keeping it longer. Of all the cars we have had, this is the one I have liked best.

Chapter 13. Thank You

I am very thankful for the many good experiences that I have had as a faculty member at K-State and as a citizen in Manhattan. I wish to thank my wife Laurel for all the ways she has enhanced the quality of my life. I have worked with many faculty, staff, and students and I am thankful for many opportunities to cooperate on important tasks. Thank you for your help. To all who have helped to make the world a better place to live, I thank you.

Chapter 14. Other Information

On May 31, 2024, I completed 60 years of service as a faculty member at Kansas State University.

One of the publications based on my PhD research includes information on the computational method that I developed and used. As of July 8, 2024, there are 441 citations of this publication.

There is a list of publications and some other information on my C.V.

I am now a faculty member in the Tim Taylor Department of Chemical Engineering which is part of the Carl Ice College of Engineering.

This version of my autobiography was completed in April 2025.