HENRY HERBERT DOW HIGH SCHOOL history

Joseph Dow went on to work for the Derby Shovel Manufacturing Company, and in 1878 the family moved once again, this time to Cleveland, Ohio, where the senior Dow was hired by the Chisholm Shovel-Works.

After graduating from high school in 1884, Dow remained close to home for college, enrolling at Cleveland's Case School of Applied Science, which later became Case Institute of Technology and finally Case Western Reserve University.

Dow earned his bachelor of science degree from Case in 1888 and was hired by the Huron Street Hospital College in Cleveland as a chemistry professor.

In 1889 he applied for and received his first patent, which involved a more efficient way to extract bromine from brine.

In 1891, after more experimentation, Dow had a new breakthrough in bromine extraction, and earned another patent.

Dow turned instead to the faculty at Case for capital, forming the Dow Process Company in 1895.

Realizing he would need a new company to move forward with the manufacture of chlorine, Herbert secured new investments and founded a third company, The Dow Chemical Company, in 1897.

Returning to Cleveland, Dow continued his experiments on his own, this time in extracting chloride and caustic soda from salt in its pure form, the element sodium chloride, or NaCl on the periodic table. Its manufacture of both bleaching powder and bromine using the Dow process proved such a success that by 1900 the company bought Midland Chemical, the firm that had fired him just five years before.

In 1904 Dow decided to ignore the threat, and started to export his company's bromine to England and then Japan.

Dow died on October 15, 1930, of cirrhosis of the liver, in Rochester, Minnesota.

In 1965 Warren Buffett took majority control of the textile manufacturer Berkshire Hathaway Inc., turning it into his primary investment vehicle.

Brandt, a Dow retiree, served as the company historian for more than 20 years and was commissioned to write Growth Company in celebration of Dow’s 100th anniversary in 1997.

Doyle, Jack, Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & the Toxic Century, Common Courage Press, 2004.

In June 2006 Warren Buffett announced that he would donate more than 80 percent of his wealth to charitable foundations.

During the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–08, Buffett made a number of deals that, though questioned at the time, proved highly profitable.

“Herbert H. Dow,” Ohio History Central, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=109 (January 3, 2008).

In November 2009 Buffett announced that Berkshire was buying the railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation for about $26 billion; the investment group already owned approximately 23 percent of the railroad.

In 2010 Buffett and the Gateses created the Giving Pledge, an invitation to other wealthy individuals to donate the majority of their fortune to charities.

In 2011 Buffett was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The information contained in this biography was last updated on December 4, 2017.