William
Mottel
Class of 1993
Background:
William J. Mottel was born March 6, 1929, in Gladstone, Michigan,
USA. He graduated with honors from Michigan State University
in 1951 with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering.
Professional
Experience:
For two years, 1951-53, he served in the United States Army
Ordinance and later attained the rank of Major in the Army
Reserves. For 38 years, beginning in 1953, he held a variety
of increasingly responsible positions with the DuPont Company.
He initially joined DuPont at its Savannah River Plant in
Aiken, South Carolina, and was promoted to plant manager in
1977. He served as director of Personnel and Employee Relations
and production manager for the Petrochemicals Department of
DuPont, located at corporate headquarters, from 1979-84; and
then director of Employee Relations for DuPont operations,
including safety, in Europe. In October 1986, he was appointed
director for Safety and Occupational Health for the worldwide
DuPont Corporation and continued in that capacity until retirement
on December 31, 1991. He was a member of the American Society
of Safety Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers,
served as Board member or president of numerous community
and service organizations in Delaware and South Carolina,
and was a member of the Grace Commission in 1982. Mr. Mottel
received the Sertoma Service to Mankind Award in 1977.
Career
Highlights:
In 1985, Mr. Mottel was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus
Award by the College of Engineering at Michigan State University.
He was a member of the Board of Directors, Executive Committee,
and Vice President of Finance for the National Safety Council,
and a member of the Board of Directors of the Delaware Safety
Council. Mr. Mottel was a strong believer, proponent and implementor
of management support for safety in the workplace, including
the development, support and use of safety professionals to
meet business needs. He demonstrated clearly that safety is
good business. He believed that quality, zero defects and
injury-free performance are synonymous and strongly believes
the word "accident" should be stricken from the
safety vocabulary because it implies prevention may not always
be possible. He was most noted for his approach and ideas
on managing safety and the elements of successful programs.
Under his guidance the Savannah River Plant continued to be
a lead facility in DuPont and the safest nuclear facility
in the world. He also set and achieved high safety standards
for DuPont facilities in Europe. As lead representative of
U.S. industry, Mr. Mottel participated with the Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in several
worldwide workshops on the prevention of major accidents involving
highly hazardous materials, from 1989-91. In addition to major
presentations at most of the workshops, he was instrumental
in drafting the final document which was released worldwide
in 1992 by the OECD. He was a delegate to the U.S./Hungary
workshop on incident prevention in Budapest, Hungary; and
served on the U.S. Department of Labor Steering Committee
on contractor safety. DuPont is recognized as having the top
safety and health program worldwide -- Mr. Mottel and his
colleagues have brought this about.
