STLE creates Jeanie McCoy Scholarship Award
TLT Scholarship Award August 2017
New honor benefits female college and high school students pursuing careers in tribology.
STLE’s board of directors has developed a scholarship named after STLE Life Member Jeanie S. McCoy of Jeanie McCoy Technologies (retired). The new award, the Jeanie McCoy Scholarship Award, will aid female college and high school students pursuing careers in tribology.
The STLE board approved the award at the society’s 72nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition last May in Atlanta. The scholarship will be presented for the first time during STLE’s 73rd Annual Meeting next year in Minneapolis, Minn.
The scholarship’s requirements were developed with the assistance of STLE Past President Dr. Maureen Hunter of King Industries and state that the recipient must be a female matriculating student pursuing an education or career in the field of tribology and enrolled as one of the following:
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a senior in high school with plans to pursue an education in the field of tribology
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an undergraduate student pursuing a degree with tribology science experience
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a graduate student pursuing a degree in the tribology sciences.
McCoy has been a member of STLE for more than 65 years, joining in the early 1950s when the lubrication industry was clearly male dominated. While STLE’s historical records cannot verify that McCoy was the society’s first woman member, she was certainly one of the first, one of the most active and one of the longest members of STLE.
McCoy began her career working for The Hodson Oil Co., whose president, Walter Hodson, is credited as the person most responsible for starting STLE in 1944. In 1952 she began a long career with International Harvester Co. (IHC), retiring in 1985. At that time she began a consulting company, Jeanie McCoy Technologies, focusing on the proper application and maintenance of metalworking fluids.
McCoy’s technical expertise has helped many organizations improve the efficiency of their operations and extend the life of their metalworking fluids by developing technologies to control bacterial growth. One of her first assignments at IHC was addressing bacterial growth at one of the company’s manufacturing plants that was so bad the city forced the plant to shut down. McCoy developed a chemistry to reduce the contamination from bacteria growth that solved the immediate issue. She then instituted a maintenance program to prevent bacterial growth by regularly inspecting the various fluids used at all IHC manufacturing facilities.
In 1952 Jeanie applied for membership in the American Society of Lubrication Engineers (ASLE), which became STLE in 1987. She served as editor of Lubrication Engineering, ASLE’s original technical magazine that eventually became TLT, for more than two decades. In 1989 she became the first woman STLE member to be elevated to the grade of Fellow, STLE’s highest honor for technical excellence and presence in the field of tribology and lubrication engineering.
In 1991 the society presented McCoy with the P.M. Ku Meritorious Award for tirelessly serving STLE and its local sections throughout the U.S., Canada and the world with her many education courses and speaking engagements on metalworking fluid maintenance. In 2000, to recognize her outstanding lifetime contributions to the promotion of tribology and lubricants, she received the International Award, STLE’s highest honor, and later was named a Life Member of the society.