Chen tells graduates to “discover your person and find your promise” Preston Chen, who earned his master’s degree in chemical engineering from West Virginia University in 1968, has achieved great success in his native Taiwan. But something was still missing for the man who has founded 15 chemical companies.
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On Saturday, May 16, that missing piece of the puzzle was awarded to Chen in the form of an honorary doctor of science degree. Chen’s journey to WVU began 50 years ago.
“He was tough, but he was fair,” Chen said. “We worked seven days a week. No football games or fraternity parties for us. But it is because of him that I am here today, nearly two generations later, receiving this incredible honor. It takes pioneers and leaders like Professor Wen, and I am proud to be associated with West Virginia University, which has so many of them.” The promise, Chen said, came in the form of freedom of thought and study. “I could approach problems creatively and develop breakthroughs that produced truly revolutionary changes in my profession,” he said. “You see, when I grew up in Taiwan, it was still a poor country focused on rote education. Here, in West Virginia, however, I had the freedom to study what was important to me. I had the independence to go outside of standard lines of thinking, and approach problems in new ways. It is a lesson that stayed with me my entire career.” For those graduates who still feel something is missing, Chen challenged them to discover their person and find their promise.
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“Be creative and seek breakthroughs,” Chen said. “It will make you achieve more than you ever thought possible.”
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“The nearly 8,000 mile journey from my home in Taiwan to West Virginia University usually meant taking a one-month voyage by ship across the Pacific Ocean, and then, most likely, a one- or two-week-long train or Greyhound bus trip across the United States,” Chen told the graduates. “Imagine walking from San Francisco to Morgantown, and that will give you an idea of how long it took.”
The “person” was Taiwan native Jimmy Wen, who earned his Ph.D. from WVU in 1956 and was later on the chemical engineering faculty. According to Chen, Wen was responsible for generations of students succeeding in the chemical engineering field and was an icon in the field of kinetics.
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“I could approach problems creatively and develop breakthroughs that produced truly revolutionary changes in my profession.”
“When I completed my master’s degree, with my father’s strong request, I went back to Taiwan to begin my business career but still with the burning desire to return here to continue what I had started for my Ph.D.,” Chen told the graduates of the class of 2015. “But even the best-laid plans go awry. So, I was never able to return until this week. I always felt that there was something missing.”
But for Chen, who is the founder of Ho Tung Group based in Taipei, Taiwan, his drive to succeed was based on two things: a person and a promise.
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