Flashback to ’82: How ASU paved the way to success for Stanley and Ron Hall

Brothers and Arizona State University chemical engineering alumni, (left to right) Ron and Stanley Hall, both graduated with chemical engineering degrees in 1982. They each went on to have fulfilling engineering careers, crediting their time at ASU as critical to their success. Photo courtesy of Stanley Hall

“Can you lend me $5 so I can get gas and go to school this afternoon?”

That’s a question Stanley Hall once asked his eight-year-old brother after realizing he did not have enough money to get to ASU’s campus from their home.

The question marks Stanley’s challenging start to his journey at ASU but sets the stage for what would become a successful and fulfilling career for the chemical engineering alum.

Stanley is one of two Hall brothers who graduated from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, now known as the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.

Ron Hall committed to studying chemical engineering at ASU after touring the university.

“I just loved the university,” Ron says. “Even though I was a commuter, participating in campus life meant a lot to me. I did a lot of intramurals — powerlifting, track and field — and won a couple of championships. I also took part in a Christian campus ministry.”

On the other hand, Stanley describes his first days at ASU as like being in an Indiana Jones movie due to the seemingly nonstop challenges.

“When I started, my father had just come down with cancer, and my mother had a disability,” Stanley says. “When my dad died, I went to court and became an instant parent of my eight-year-old brother, and we still had to take care of our mother.”

Amid the tragedy of losing his father, catching valley fever, becoming a legal guardian and starting college, Stanley still managed to excel in class. At the time, he was working part-time jobs to be able to pay his bills, and recalls that sometimes the workload would get overwhelming.

Just when he was about to get a D grade in a control systems engineering class, Stanley got an opportunity that completely changed his experience at ASU and beyond.

“I walked into my professor’s office and told him my circumstances, to which he stated, ‘Well, that’s a tough situation, but you still have to live with the D’,” Stanley says.

However, fortunately, the professor had a connection at Honeywell and knew that the company was hiring engineering interns, so he notified Stanley. Excited, Stanley reached out to the Honeywell contact, interviewed and got the job.

“That job opened up a lot of doors for me because it solved a lot of my financial problems,” he says. “I repeated the class and completed it with an acceptable grade, and control engineering went on to become a strong foundation to my career.”

While Stanley’s brother, Ron, had a more enjoyable experience at ASU, he also struggled in his own way.

“It was intense,” he says.

After realizing that there was a big gap between his math knowledge and what was needed to pass a calculus course, Ron knew that he needed to step up.

After two years and countless hours spent in group study sessions, he persevered and started excelling not only in calculus but in other courses too.

“I wasn’t going to give up,” he says. “I was the guy on the front row who raised my hand to ask questions. I wasn’t afraid to embarrass myself and just didn’t care about looking smart.”

In 1982, Ron graduated in the first-ever fall commencement at ASU with a degree in chemical engineering. While he went on to have a successful 37-year career, getting his first job wasn’t entirely smooth sailing.

When he graduated, chemical engineers were not in high demand. The market was so bad that Ron refers to that time as “the great chemical engineering depression of ’82.” In fact, of the 13 students who graduated that semester, no one had job offers.

Eventually, he got his first job offer from Rockwell International in Richland, Washington, as a process engineer. While Ron was at the company for the next five years, his brother Stanley was using his chemical engineering skills to make chlorine and sodium hydroxide at DuPont in Corpus Christi, Texas.

“It’s fair to say that I spent the first half of my career chasing the fluorine molecule, which is used to make refrigerants that go into air conditioners and cars, along with other specialty chemicals,” Stanley says.

Stanley worked at multiple DuPont locations during his 35-year tenure with the company. In the second half of his career, he transitioned from technical engineering to management, implementing end-to-end supply chain and manufacturing systems in various industries. As a manager, he leveraged his engineering background to organize resources necessary to solve complex problems and support his team.

Similarly, Ron, while a hands-on type of engineer, started doing more project management. For six years, he designed and installed various pieces of equipment including tanks, glove boxes and pumps while working at Rocky Flats, a United States nuclear weapons plant in Denver, Colorado, that closed in 1992.

At one point, Ron was leading a team of 20 design systems engineers with various backgrounds, including chemical, mechanical and electrical engineering. When the plant was shut down, Ron met and married his wife in Colorado, then moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. He went on to become an expert in Lithium chemistry and travelled the world while working for FMC Corporation for 24 years.

“I would go to the company’s plants in England, South America, India and China to either build new plants or improve the performance of existing ones,” he says. “I think I deployed up to $75 million worth of capital over the years.”

On the other hand, Stanley went into logistics, procurement and supply chain management where he continued to leverage his chemical engineering background while acquiring several professional certificates to contribute to his team in a meaningful way.

“I’m almost certain that in your lifetime, you have probably handled a product that I, directly or indirectly, made,” Stanley says. “If you go into your refrigerator and pull out a package of frozen beans or a milk carton, chances are that I supplied some of the materials used to make the labels and packaging.”

Inspiring the next generation of ASU Sun Devils

Though Stanley completed his program during the fall 1981 semester, since at the time ASU did not have seasonal graduation ceremonies, his ceremony was held in May 1982, making him and Ron two of only three Black chemical engineering students to graduate from ASU that year. They both have had fulfilling and impactful careers, thanks to their engineering education at ASU.

“Engineers can pretty much work in any field,” Stanley says. “I learned how to think and solve problems, which enabled me to do a lot of different things throughout my career.”

Stanley, his wife, Kim Hall, and their son, Aaron Hall, recently visited the ASU Tempe campus. Aaron hasn’t decided whether he’ll be the family’s next Sun Devil, but Stanley hopes his son has as great a college experience as he and his brother did.