Cudd quickly attained jobs as a research chemist at E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Inc, the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation, and then the West Point Manufacturing Company, focusing on inorganic chemistry, the development of synthetic materials, and the head of a textile engineering plant.

[6] He then studied physical chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin and received a Master of Arts in 1936 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1941.

[3] In 1942, he took a job as Supervisor of Inorganic Research for the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation in East Point, Georgia,[3] now known as The Mosaic Company.

[3] While there he studied the use of synthetic resins in textile engineering, which led to West Point Manufacturing's fabric, "Lantuck".

Many EES researchers held the rank of professor despite lacking a doctorate (or a comparable qualification for promotion as determined by the Georgia Board of Regents), something that irritated members of the teaching faculty.

[4] The new system, approved in the spring 1953, used the board of regents' qualifications for promotion and mirrored the academic tenure track.

[13] The committee members felt that percentage to be undesirable, and also noted the lack of collaboration between the EES and academic departments.