Metallurgical engineer, corporate leader, proud Miner
Joseph Rupp, MetE’72, arrived on the Rolla campus in 1968 planning to major in engineering management. But two seniors in his fraternity convinced him to consider metallurgical engineering.
“Those guys were landing seven or eight job offers with great starting salaries,” says Rupp. “They suggested I talk to a professor in the department, so I did. He told me I needed to like chemistry because there was a lot of it.”
That professor, Dr. Thomas O’Keefe, MetE’58, PhD MetE’65, a faculty member for nearly half a century and Curators’ Professor of metallurgical engineering, became an influential mentor. “He had a tremendous impact on the lives of many students, including mine,” says Rupp.
While Rupp remembers Rolla’s academic rigor — particularly “studying on Friday nights for the dreaded Saturday morning physics exams,” — his fondest memories include the two intramural football championships Phi Kappa Theta won and meeting his future wife, Sally, at a football game at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she earned a degree in elementary education.
He also recalls a setback during his sophomore year, when he lost a summer internship offer from a steel company during the U.S. steel downturn. “I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I went to Dr. O’Keefe for advice,” says Rupp. Soon after, he was in the cooperative engineering program at Olin Brass—an opportunity that would define the rest of his career.
“They suggested I talk to a professor in the department, so I did. He told me I needed to like chemistry because there was a lot of it.”
When Rupp graduated in 1972, he went to work full time for the company as a process engineer. “Olin made about 50 copper alloys used in everything from shell casings and plumbing parts to coins,” says Rupp. “It was our job to standardize the processing.”
Rupp went on to serve as a plant manager, vice president of manufacturing, and president of Olin’s metals division before advancing into corporate leadership as executive vice president, president and CEO, and ultimately executive chairman, before retiring in 2017.
During his 45-year career with Olin, Rupp says his biggest challenge was leading a corporate pivot in 2007, when the company sold its century-old metals division. “We repositioned with an investment in our chemicals business that created the largest chlor-alkali producer in the world.”
As a member and past president of the S&T Board of Trustees and member of the Mines and Metallurgy Academy, Rupp has helped to shape S&T’s path forward. He was awarded an honorary professional degree by S&T in 1987 and received an honorary doctorate in 2009, the year he and Sally established the Dr. Thomas J. O’Keefe Lecture Series honoring his mentor, who died in 2008. The Rupps have also supported many other university priorities, including a major gift to the Innovation Lab that named the Rupp Family Active Learning Classroom.
“S&T is a jewel in central Missouri,” says Rupp, whose late brother, Matt Rupp, ME’70, was also a Miner. “Rolla graduates have a strong reputation in industry. They are famously ready to roll up their sleeves and work.”
The Rupps have a nephew who graduated from S&T (Scott Tanner, ArcE’14, CE’14) but no second-generation Miners among their children. “Sally and I have five wonderful kids and not one is an engineer or an S&T graduate,” says Rupp. “We’re still hoping to recruit a grandchild.”