He taught at both the high school and college level before going to work in research at the Phillips Petroleum Company in 1944.
In 1951, he invented crystalline polypropylene and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with his fellow research chemist Robert Banks.
The initial research drive was to oligomerize light olefins which were byproducts at the time from catalytic cracking reactions developed during WWII.
[4] However, in a series of experiments, and after having added chromium as a second transition metal promoter, the scientists created crystalline structures.
He held (jointly) a number of important patents and authored research papers before he left Phillips in 1985.