[1] Sadtler was born at Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, the son of a Lutheran minister, and educated at Pennsylvania College (class of 1867), at Lehigh University (one year), at Lawrence Scientific School (BSc 1870), and in Europe at the University of Göttingen (PhD 1871).

In 1901 they founded Samuel P. Sadtler & Son, a chemical consulting firm in Philadelphia.

On June 22, 1908, he welcomed interested people to a meeting at the Engineers Club, Philadelphia.

The forty men present became Charter Members of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, electing Sadtler as the President, a post he held till the end of 1909.

He made his Presidential address at the first Annual Meeting on December 28, 1908, and also established the Transactions of the AIChE in the same year.