Edolph A. Larson and Truman E. Anderson, Sr. Chair of Chemistry
Established in 1988, this chair in chemistry was made possible with estate gifts from two friends of the college who shared a life-long career in chemistry. Edolph A. Larson ’14, a member of the St. Olaf Band under F. M. Christiansen and a generous contributor to several St. Olaf funds, a taught chemistry at Joliet Junior College in Illinois. Truman E. Anderson, an active Lutheran layman and member of the St. Olaf Board of Regents from 1962 to 1972, was a pioneer in developing ethical standards for the oil and gas industry. Previous holders of this chair are Wesley A. Pearson ’54 and Gary O. Spessard.
Dr. Miessler, who was appointed to this chair in 2005, teaches and studies the chemistry of inorganic molecules and the photochemistry of transition metal complexes. A former chair of the St. Olaf chemistry department, Miessler coauthored Inorganic Chemistry (Third Edition, Prentice Hall, 2003) with his late colleague Donald A. Tarr. Recently he teamed up with chemistry colleague Gary O. Spessard (a former occupant of this chair) to publish Organometallic Chemistry (Prentice Hall, 1997), an introduction to chemical compounds containing bonds between carbon and a metal.
