Clement Bowman

Clement Willis Bowman
Clement Bowman
Born	(1930-01-07) January 7, 1930 Toronto, Ontario
Residence	Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Occupation	Chemical Engineer
Employer	Imperial Oil Limited
Known for	Founding chairperson of Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority Recipient of the Order of Canada
Home town	Toronto
Parents	Clement Willis Bowman Sr Emily Bowman
Website
clembowman.info

Clement "Clem" Willis Bowman, C.M., PhD., P.Eng., HCIC, FCAE (born January 7, 1930 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian chemical engineer, the founding chairperson of the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority. Bowman is the developer of ProGrid Evaluation Methodology. He is a recipient of a number of awards including the Order of Canada.^[1][2]

Bowman graduated in chemical engineering in 1952 and later completed his PhD in 1961. After working several decades for Imperial Oil Limited, and also holding executive positions with the Chemical Institute of Canada and the Canadian Research Management Association, Bowman started his own consultancy. He helped organizations use "ProGrid" to make a broad range of decisions such as selecting research projects, choosing corporate strategies, and making decisions on proposals, grant applications and awards.

Early life

He is was born to Emily and Clement Willis Bowman Sr. on January 7, 1930 in Toronto, Ontario. His father was an émigré from England who settled in Ingersoll, Ontario. After high school, Bowman enrolled in the University of Toronto where he graduated as a chemical engineer in 1952.

Career

After working several years with DuPont Canada on the production of nylon, Bowman returned to the University of Toronto in 1957 for postgraduate work. In 1958, he attained a MASc and then a PhD in 1961.

He then joined Imperial Oil Limited, an affiliate of Exxon Corporation, at the Esso Research Centre in Sarnia, Ontario.^[3]

In 1964, Imperial Oil selected him as one of the staff to test the process of bitumen separation on a variety of oil sands by taking the plant to the oil sands formation in Alberta. He worked for Syncrude Canada Limited for the next six years, conducting studies on the molecular and interfacial properties of the oils sands and the mechanism of the Clark hot water separation process., leading to a paper presented at the Seventh World Petroleum Congress in Mexico City in 1967.^[3]

In the late 1960s the government of Alberta decreased the rate of oil sands development, and Bowman returned to Imperial Oil's research department in Sarnia.

In 1975, he was became chairperson of the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA), a crown corporation with a fund of $100 million (worth 400 million today).^[4] He was responsible for starting a project to obtain access to the deep oil sands deposits by sinking a shaft and drilling horizontal wells by directional drilling, now the basis of the widely adopted method of steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD).^[3]

In 1984, he returned to Imperial Oil as Vice President—Research for Esso Petroleum Canada, a division of the company, with responsibility for the Sarnia Research Centre. In 1986, he returned to Alberta as President of the Alberta Research Council, an Alberta crown corporation. At the Council, he led the organization into joint research ventures with the private sector, with the oil sands and their environmental issues remaining a prioriuty.^[5] In 1989, five years after leaving AOSTRA, he received the K. A. Clark Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to AOSTRA.

On completing his term there, he opened his own consulting practice .^[6]

At 61, he was inspired by the work of Alex Lowey and Phil Hood in their book The Power of the 2×2 Matrix to devise a methodology, called ProGrid, for practical decisions such as selecting research projects, choosing corporate strategies,^[7] and making decisions on proposals, grant applications and awards in a number of Canadian research institutions and Centres of Excellence, such as Alberta Heritage Foundation of Medical Research, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Centres of Excellence .^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, he was one of a large group that prepared a report under the auspices of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) on energy options for Canada .^[8][9]

Recognition

2008 winners of the Global Energy International Prize Clement Bowman and Oleg Favorsky at a press conference in 2008.

During his career, he held the office of President or Chairperson at the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, the Chemical Institute of Canada, and the Canadian Research Management Association,^[10] In 1991, he received the Canadian Research Management Association's Medalist Award and the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership Award. He was a Member of the National Research Council and served on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Association for the World Petroleum Congresses. In 1993, he became an Honorary Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, and in 1994 was installed as a Member of the Order of Canada.^[11]

The work with the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and his contributions to the Alberta Oil Sands during his career, resulted in his receipt of the Global Energy International Prize in 2008, awarded by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.^[12]

Awards

President & Bowman at Podium

^[13]

Publications

• Intangibles, Exploring the Full Depth of Issues, FCIC, Grafiks Marketing & Communications, ISBN 0-9739339-0-9

References

External links

• "Three National Technology Projects", Canadian Academy of Engineering, Oct. 11/12, 2007