Henry Madison "Hank" Rowan Jr. (December 4, 1923 – December 9, 2015) was an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

and philanthropist.

Rowan University Rowan University is a public research university in Glassboro, New Jersey, with a medical campus in Stratford and medical and academic campuses in Camden. It was founded in 1923 as Glassboro Normal School on a site donated by 107 residents. ...

was named for him, after he made a $100-million donation. He was born in Raphine, Virginia, to Henry M. Rowan Sr. and Margaret Frances Boyd Rowan on December 4, 1923 (coincidentally the same year the school which now carries his name was founded).Roberts, Sam
"Henry M. Rowan, Industrialist Who Gave $100 Million Gift to University, Dies at 92"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', December 13, 2015. Accessed December 23, 2017. "Henry Madison Rowan Jr. was born in Raphine, Va., on Dec. 4, 1923. His father was an obstetrician. His mother, the former Margaret Boyd, was a biological researcher.... He was raised in Ridgewood, N.J., in Bergen County, and attended Williams College in Massachusetts before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." He grew up in

Ridgewood, New Jersey Ridgewood is a village in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 24,958,bomber pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they ar ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

with the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

, Rowan attended

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

and graduated from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

with honors with a degree in electrical engineering. Rowan originally worked for Ajax Electrothermic Corporation of Trenton, New Jersey. He suggested improvements to the furnaces made by Ajax—shorter power leads and heavier copper bus bar—but the company did not implement his suggestions. Rowan left Ajax and decided to start his own company, Inductotherm Corp. Rowan designed and built his first

induction furnace An induction furnace is an electrical furnace in which the heat is applied by induction heating of metal. Induction furnace capacities range from less than one kilogram to one hundred tons, and are used to melt iron and steel, copper, aluminum ...

in 1953 in the garage of his home in

Ewing Township, New Jersey Ewing Township is a township in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township falls within the New York metropolitan area as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. It borders the Philadelphia metropolitan area and is part of the F ...

with the help of his wife. Expanding from this first induction furnace Rowan created Inductotherm Industries Inc. which has since grown to include 80 subsidiaries throughout North America,

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and Australia. Today, there are more than 27,000 Inductotherm induction melting installations worldwide and they account for more than half of the melting systems in the world today.

Philanthropy

In spring 1992, Rowan and his wife Betty pledged $100 million to Glassboro State College, which was renamed

the same year in his honor. At the time, it was the largest gift to a public college in the history of higher education. The school now has an engineering building named after him. Rowan and his wife were strong supporters of

Doane Academy Doane Academy is a coeducational, independent day school for grades from Pre-K to 12 located in Burlington, Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. Originally called St. Mary's Hall, it was founded in May 1837 by Episcopal Bishop George ...

in Burlington, NJ. In January 2015 they created the Henry M. and Eleanor E. Rowan Endowment. This endowment was created with a gift of $17 million. The Rowans, personally and through their family foundation, have donated over $30 million to Doane Academy over the last several years.

Personal

Rowan competed in the 1992 Olympic Sailing trials in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, but failed to qualify. He wrote an autobiography titled ''The Fire Within'' in 1995 with John Calhoun Smith. He lived in

Westampton Township, New Jersey Westampton is a township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 9,121, an increase of 308 (+3.5%) from the 2010 census count of 8,813, which in turn reflected ...

for part of his life.Staff
"Fire strikes Rowan estate mansion in Westampton"
'' Courier-Post'', November 10, 2016. Accessed December 23, 2017. "Westampton - A fire was reported at the historic Rowan estate mansion Thursday, according to police reports.... The home, located on county parkland, was formerly owned by the late industrialist and philanthropist Henry Rowan." On December 9, 2015, Rowan died at the age of 92.Henry M. Rowan (Dec. 4, 1923 - Dec. 9, 2015)

, December 2015.

References

Rowan Magazine

External links

Remembering Henry Rowan

Henry Rowan featured in Rowan Magazine

Inductotherm Corp.

Malcolm Gladwell podcast - "My Little Hundred Million"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowan, Henry 1923 births 2015 deaths Engineers from Virginia United States Army Air Forces bomber pilots of World War II MIT School of Engineering alumni People from Ewing Township, New Jersey People from Ridgewood, New Jersey People from Westampton Township, New Jersey Rowan University People from Rockbridge County, Virginia Engineers from New Jersey 20th-century American philanthropists Military personnel from New Jersey