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Gerard E. "Red" Murray, Founder

Gerard E. "Red" Murray (1916 - 2005), Founder of U·C Coatings Corpoartion

Red was born August 3, 1916, in a small industrial village in western Maryland - the heart of Appalachia. In 1921 his family settled near Birmingham, Alabama, where he attended grammar school.  In 1927 transferring to a modern high school, with indoor plumbing, was a great event.  During the Depression, Red raised and sold eggs and chickens while his younger brother handled dairy production with their two cows.

After graduating high school at age 16, and attending the University of Alabama for one year, Red transferred to Georgia Tech to become a chemical engineer - because the richest man he knew was a chemical engineer.  Red put himself through school on the Co-op program for the next 5 years. During his work periods, he was employed by DuPont, which gave him a job when he graduated college in 1939.

From Tennessee to Wisconsin to Illinois, Red learned to make TNT, to get a plant up and running, and then was assigned to help organize and run a "high explosives college" after the U.S. entered World War II. He ended the war as a Service Superintendent at the Wabash River Ordinance Works, where they manufactured RDX - the most destructive explosive ever invented until the atomic bomb (and did some work on the A-bomb too).

During the war, Red returned home long enough to marry Eleanor Thompson, no longer "the little girl next door".  Eleanor had accelerated her college education and graduated early in order to get married shortly after her 20th birthday.

Red left DuPont in Buffalo, NY to help start O-Cel-O, Inc. -  then and now the largest cellulose sponge manufacturer in the world.  O-Cel-O grew so fast that, in 1952, Red and his partners sold the company to General Mills whose "deep pockets" allowed for the continuing successful expansion of O-Cel-O and its markets.

After forays into other business fields such as banking, brick manufacturing, and international trade, Red returned to chemical engineering in 1971 and purchased Upson Chemical Corporation, the foundation for today's U·C Coatings.