Frederick N. Tebbe

His father, Charles L. Tebbe, worked for the United States Forest Service so Fred’s early education took place in Montana, Oregon, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

His senior research focused on the synthesis of diboron tetrachloride from BCl3 and Hg discharge cells under the direction of Professor Thomas Wartik.

Instead, Tebbe spent a year at Montana State University studying psychology and philosophy: After this interlude and thoughts of going into Forestry, he finally decided to join Schaeffer at Indiana.

In addition to the synthesis of pyrophoric and explosive compounds, Tebbe used 10B NMR spectroscopy to understand the mechanism of the aggregation of boranes into the homologs B4H10, B5H9, and B5H11.

[2][3][4] In the fall of 1965, Tebbe was hired by Earl Muetterties in DuPont Central Research Department, where he worked in the group of George Parshall.

[10] In his autobiography written upon receipt of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Richard Schrock reminisced fondly of his short time at DuPont (1972–1974) when he shared his lab space with Tebbe.

[citation needed] In the presence of friends, he was a lively speaker who on more than one occasion interchanged his chalk and his cigarette while excitedly describing recent results at a blackboard.