Pierce left Georgetown College as a sophomore for New York to serve in the gas defense section of the United States Army Signal Corps.
[1] During this time he co-authored seminal chemistry textbook Quantitative Analysis with Edward Lauth Haenisch.
Pierce had been recruited by his doctoral advisor, W. Albert Noyes, Jr., to join the "division 10" central laboratory at Northwestern University.
[8] Pierce's work included an assignment in Australia and the South Pacific.
[11] Pierce was recruited by Gordon S. Watkins to serve as the head of the Physical Sciences department at the then newly opened University of California, Riverside (UCR) in 1953.