Benn W. Jesser ’36 *41
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Benn died July 13, 2011, in Boston, Mass., surrounded by his family.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Benn came to Princeton from Hackensack, N.J. At the University, Benn was class president and graduated cum laude in chemical engineering. He played rugby and 150-pound football and was a diver on the swim team. Benn was a member of Dial Lodge.
After working for DuPont for two years, Benn returned to Princeton to earn a master’s degree in chemical engineering and served on the chemical engineering faculty. During his career, he worked on the Manhattan Project for M.W. Kellogg Co., designed and built oil refineries and chemical plants around the world, and took leadership positions at M.W. Kellogg and Hoechst-Uhde. He was active in his Florida and Nantucket communities and sat on several volunteer boards.
Benn was a devoted alumnus, serving his class, Annual Giving, regional committees and the Alumni Council. Benn attended his 75th reunion shortly before his death and proudly showed off his family at the P-rade.
Benn was predeceased by a daughter, Bonnie Benn Jesser; a brother, Ned Jesser; his first wife, Alice Abeel; and two grandchildren. He is survived by his wife, Bobbie Jesser; a brother, Richard Jesser; 11 children and stepchildren; 29 grandchildren; and 53 great-grandchildren.
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Frank Campi
3 Years AgoRemembering Benn
I was just recounting a memory of Benn on a business trip I took with him to Libya in 1979. He was working for Uhde and was showing us a methanol plant Uhde had built on the Libyan coast to supply methanol to Europe. Qaddafi was in charge and Libya had just changed their flag to a green Muslim flag rather than the Italian-based flag Libya had previously. My firm was looking at a natural gas-based coastal plant in Trinidad, so we were interested. During the trip, we saw that the plant was also taking the carbon dioxide from the adjacent ammonia plant to add to the methanol plant to improve the efficiency. We added this element to the plant when it was built by the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGCTT).
What brought it to mind was the chaos at Kabul Airport. Benn, a rugby player, just dove into the crowd to get our tickets and get us onboard the flight (Benghazi to Tripoli to Malta). Thank you Benn for a great memory.