Harry Greenwald, 1951 (Track & Field)
After service in the U.S. Navy as a weapons officer on aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser that was the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, Greenwald joined a company that was a pioneer in the plastics industry. He was with that company when it developed the first plastic gears, medical devices and experimented with plastic golf shoe cleats and cores for golf balls.
Greenwald started his own businesses in Chicago and published the first magazine for plastics distributors. He helped develop the first plastic gasoline in-line filter for gasoline engines, the plastic-coated pull cord for buses, supplied experimental material for the first plastic tennis rackets, helped develop the first protective helmet for ice hockey, developed the first hobby kits using plastics and invented the first computer numbering system for plastic distributors. He is a senior member of the Society of Plastics Engineers.
In Chicago, Greenwald served on the Harbor Modification Committee and local industry development programs and has served on the Illinois Small Business Council of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, the board of directors of the National Association of Plastics Distributors, and on federal committees that developed standards for high performance plastic tubing. He chaired the education committee of the Plastics Pioneers Association and was a counselor with the Small Business Association.
In 2007, he was instrumental in establishing creating the Plastics History and Artifacts collection at the Syracuse University Library, the largest such research collection in the country.
