Page 83 - BWM March 2013

March 2013 | Business World Magazine | 83
functional fortitude. That all began in the
early 1900’s with Charles Geisen’s creation
of the “Alsatian Emulsion Factory” in Stras-
bourg, France. Geisen had originally worked
as a professional teacher of Latin, but his in-
tellectual proclivities extended into topics
of technology, science and chemistry. In the
construction practices of this era, architects
and builders would customarily use coal tar
or bitumen (a semi-solid form of petroleum
that is black, sticky and very viscous). The bi-
tumen was essential in the coating of roofs,
yet it was costly, cumbersome and consider-
ably unreliable over time.
Wadsworth Plant