Growing up in Schenectady as a son and grandson of barbers, Chuck Battaglia instead chose a career in science and went to Colgate University on a basketball scholarship. His interest in flying led to AFROTC training and a chance to fly out of Griffiss AFB in a B-29 to the Arctic Circle to test Canadian air defense measures. On advice of his professors, he opted out of active AF duty, and went on to earn a PhD in physical chemistry at Brown University under Prof. J. O. Edwards. His studies of peroxy acids and nucleophilic oxidations of halide ions on a Kodak fellowship resulted in an interview with Jack Thirtle and his joining the Kodak Research Labs in 1962.His KRL work included electrochemical studies of silver complexes, development kinetics, the role of sulfite and thiosulfate ions on the “red spot” problem in microfilm, and clinical blood electrolytes. Chuck was a contributor to several patents, including several on the use of ion-selective electrode technology to measure blood electrolytes. In 1976 he was invited by Chuck Bard to join the Phototechnology Division as a group leader and later as lab head in new photoprocessing development. He retired in 1991 as a Unit Director in the Quality Services Organization. Chuck had served the Rochester Section ACS as representative to the Rochester Council of Scientific Societies and also was a long-term member of SPSE.
One of the retirement benefits was a retraining program, which Chuck used to take a course on repairing electric trains. He joined the Train Collectors Association and has been active ever since buying, repairing, restoring, and selling toy trains and equipment. He describes this as a “Lazarus complex” – the yen to restore dead stuff to useful life. A 1997 heart attack slowed him down a little, but he still manages to sell his trains at eight shows a year. He has worked out regularly on YMCA exercise machines for the last 30 years and has enjoyed playing rhythm guitar in the New Horizons Dance Band.
In 1958 Chuck married Ann, his high school sweetheart, and they have three grown children, David, Michael, and Lisa, as well as six grandchildren. Mike shares Chuck’s interest in trains. Well endowed with a friendly sense of humor, Chuck would like to adopt the motto of a friend he met at a toy show – “Be a kid again for there’s no future in growing old!”
J. Dolf Bass
