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Yungchien (Tom) Tang – the Gentleman I Know by Fangxin (Cathy) Yang

Yungchien (Tom) Tang, born in Shanghai, earned his BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Zhejiang University (Zhe-Da) in 1940, and then immediately joined the faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering. With the establishment of the Research Institute of Chemical Engineering at Zhe-Da in 1942, Tom became a graduate student of its first class of MS program. In 1944, Tom was awarded a competitive national scholarship for advanced study in the United States. Tom arrived in the United States in 1945 and continued his graduate study in engineering at the University of Pittsburgh with an internship at Westinghouse Electric Co.. Upon receiving his master’s degree in chemical engineering, Tom continued his doctoral program in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University in 1948.

Tom joined a New York based Standard Packaging Corp. in 1949 while still working on his Ph.D. dissertation. Soon afterwards he was promoted to be the Manager of Research and Development (R&D), Manager of Quality Control, Technical Manager, and the General Manager of one of its branch companies.

In 1967, Tom founded the Tekni Plex Inc. and has been its president ever since. With his pioneering spirit, strategic visions and effective leadership, the Tekni Plex Inc., with a research lab and two manufacturing companies, became a leading supplier of packaging materials for food and medicine industries. The total revenue reached 45 million in 1992. This represents a 20-fold increase in revenue and in the meantime the productivity improved by a factor of 16. Owing to his achievement in technology and innovative management style, he was recognized as an outstanding Asian entrepreneur by the US government. The Tekni Plex Inc. also received the “Outstanding Company” award several times in New York City and was ranked one of the top 50 fastest growing companies in New Jersey. Tom retired in 1994 leaving company with a sound expansion plan on a new manufacture site in Pennsylvania for medicine packaging materials and another site in South Carolina for food packaging materials. The outstanding performance and the potential of the company attracted many investors. Finally, J.P. Morgan Bank and Fuji Bank together purchased the company in 1994, in the belief of its good financial future.

Tom has always been a strong advocate of integral connection between academic pursuit and entrepreneur ambition for college students in engineering. As early as the Anti-Japanese War in the 1940’s, Tom launched a Zhong Hua Soap Company to support the war efforts when Zhe-Da was forced to relocate to Gui Zhou Province as a result of the Japanese invasion. Tom indicated on several occasions that most students graduated from Zhe-Da had a very solid technical background but lacked the entrepreneur ambitions and social skills to make much greater contributions to the society as engineers.

In 1997, Tom and his wife Jane generously donated 2.4 million U.S. dollars to Zhe-Da, their alma mater, to promote more dynamic development and growth among students. As a result, a contemporary student center with a building area of 7,800 m2 was built in the center of Zhe-Da’s Yuquan campus, known as the ￼￼ Yungchien Center in honor of Tom. They also donated $250,000 to the Institute of Chemical Engineering at Zhe-Da to establish the “Yungchien Scholarship”. (Photo: the Yungchien Center. Provided by the author)

Not only is Tom known for his successes as an entrepreneur and engineer but h is also known for his quiet generosity to his friends and the community. As an entrepreneur engineer, Tom truly enjoyed the benefit of transforming lab discoveries into products. However, making money is not the sole objective of his business. He is keenly aware of the social responsibilities beyond his business endeavors and engineering blueprint. There was one manufacturing site in Brooklyn, NY that rarely made any profit for a long time due to some environmental and labor union issues. Strategically, he could have closed that site. However, Tom started his engineer career at that site and knew many workers there personally. He was deeply concerned about the welfare of the workers if the site would shut down. Instead of closing the site to save money, he kept it open to help the workers and local community. Tom is known for his kindness and is very well liked by the employees in his company and his friends.

Tom has always kept a close tie with Zhe-Da. He has served as the Chairman of the Zhe-Da Alumni Association in USA for many years. Moreover, he and other Zhe-Da alumni established the American Zhu Kezhen Education Foundation in 1995 for promoting academic exchange and joint research between Zhejiang University and universities in the United States. Tom was awarded the title of an honorary professor by Zhe-Da in 1997.

Personally, I am also benefited greatly from Tom’s career guidance and his amazingly positive attitude toward life. He once told me that we shouldn’t let minor misfortunes get in the way of pursuing our major goal in the United States, now that we made our choice of coming to this land. This advice, its implication and its philosophy have always been with me. His words have profound influence on me in my pursuing career goals. When I ponder more over this today, I felt his positive attitude would benefit people in everyday life no matter where they are, in the USA, China or elsewhere in the world. (Photo: the author, first on left, with Tom, second on right, and his wife Jane, center. Provided by the author.) Tom retired from his company in 1994, but he has never withdrawn from active social and personal responsibilities. Apart from his continued promotion of education and community services, he has also kept his tennis routine. He is a long time amateur athlete in tennis. He had played tennis every Sunday for over 40 years before his retirement. While many of his tennis partners, some younger than him, have retired, he still strives on. Except it has become a daily “match” with some professional players. (Editors: Cheng Zhu and Wei Xu)