John Durkee was born in 1940 in the Pocono Mountains area of Eastern Pennsylvania.
He received his Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Master of Science (M.S.), and Doctoral (Ph.D.) degrees from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and is a Registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) in Texas where he has lived most of his post-graduation life.
While employed for 25 years by DuPont-Nemours, his contributions included research and development in polymers, industrial chemicals, and instrumentation, and in the development of replacement cleaning products and systems for CFC-113.
Since retiring from DuPont-Nemours in 1993, Dr. Durkee has served as an
independent consultant, author, and educator working with both end users and
suppliers.
Clients have included companies in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and
industrial component manufacturing sectors. Assignments have included solving
cleaning, production, and quality problems; product and process selection, and startup; product and process development, and market development. Some work led to patents for clients.
Widely considered an unbiased educator in the field of cleaning science and
technology, John Durkee has presented courses and workshops on cleaning
across the USA and in Canada. He also teaches multi-day courses on the
subject of surface finishing.
John Durkee's publications include The Parts Cleaning Handbook Without CFCs: How to Manage the Change (Gardner, 1994), which continues to sell in countries only now beginning to phase out CFCs, and Management of Industrial Cleaning Technology and Processes (Elsevier, 2006).
His forthcoming book, The Science and Technology of Solvent Cleaning, is scheduled for publication by Elsevier in December 2012. His next forthcoming book, The Handbook of Solvent Cleaning, is scheduled for publication by Elsevier in April 2013.
Since 1994 John Durkee has provided objective monthly columns about cleaning
science, technology, and markets to periodicals including: A2C2 (now Controlled Environments Magazine), Clean-Tech, Galvanotechnik (Germany), Metal Finishing Magazine, Precision Cleaning Magazine, Process Cleaning Magazine, and Surface Finishing Journal (China).
Some recent publications are available to read at no charge on his web site -- http:\www.precisioncleaning.com
John Durkee has recently contributed to resolution of conflicts about patented technology as an expert witness, and has provided consulting service to a branch of he U.S. government about past cleaning technology with trichloroethylene (TCE). He is currently doing research about the suitability of binary azeotropes to replace single cleaning solvents, and use of solubility parameters to characterize aqueous cleaning fluids.
John Durkee has been married twice (Betty in 1964 and Dorothy in 2006). There are no known children from either marriage. John enjoys sports, especially college wrestling and football, travel, underwater photography, good company, and especially anyone who can laugh.
