Serving in academia as a chemistry professor to begin his career, Herty concurrently promoted collegiate athletics including creating the first varsity football team at the University of Georgia.

Holmes became a metallurgist and vice-president of Bethlehem Steel and was elected to both the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

After securing letters of introduction from American colleagues William McMurtrie, Remsen, Edgar Fahs Smith, and Francis Venable, Herty left for Europe and interacted with Walther Nernst, G. Lunge, Otto N. Witt and Alfred Werner.

Herty's European trip provided the stimulus to experiment with Georgia pine trees as a source of paper after learning of the German use of tannenbäume for that same purpose.

[9] A Witt lecture on the poor processes used by the American naval stores industry and the almost certain likelihood that those processes would completely destroy the Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) led Herty to study the naval store industry's use of those trees to produce timber and turpentine.

[10] After engaging in literature and field research to better understand the industry and its processes, Herty confirmed the validity of Witt's claim that the pine species would be completely destroyed.

[11] After conferring with forester W. W. Ashe of the North Carolina Geological Survey, Herty simplified a cup and gutter system used for many decades in France to combat both problems.

The "Herty system" required less forestry expertise and labor, both necessities to ensure the method's financial success in the United States.

[14] After continued recruitment efforts by Venable, the president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) at the time, Herty finally accepted a long-offered appointment as the head of that school's chemistry department in January 1905 and served as the Smith Professor of Applied Chemistry, officially beginning his duties in July of that year.

[15] During his tenure at UNC, Herty continued to receive numerous job offers from groups including UGA as the Chair of Forestry, the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Soils, the Forest Products Laboratory, the University of Virginia, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; however, Herty remained at UNC.

Garvan and Alexander Mitchell Palmer were the Alien Property Custodians for President Woodrow Wilson and were tasked with the creation of the foundation.

In 1927, Herty relinquished his full-time responsibilities at the Foundation to become a chemical consultant to universities, trade associations, municipal governments and private firms in the southern U.S.

[23] He led efforts to improve the athletic fields, establish the first campus gymnasium in the basement of Old College, create intramural and varsity baseball teams, and built tennis courts.

[24] Herty was also directly involved in the creation of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA), which held its first meeting in Atlanta on December 22, 1894.

[2][6][25] Herty died on July 27, 1938, in Savannah, Georgia, from complications due to a series of heart attacks in the months preceding his death.

Herty's body was cremated in Macon, Georgia and his remains were interred in a private ceremony at Memory Hill Cemetery in Milledgeville.

The most significant is a two-story structure at Georgia Southern University campus, used for science courses, including geology, geography, and chemistry.

[6] The Georgia General Assembly posthumously created the Savannah-based Herty Foundation in 1938 as a state-owned, non-profit organization focused on the pulp and paper industry.