College of

Engineering, Architecture and Technology

Alan Tye (John Klopp's friend and fraternity brother at OSU), Paula Tye, Ann Whiteley and Dr. Rob Whiteley (Professor and Head Emeritus).

 

The College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology at Oklahoma State University recently honored John Klopp by naming a faculty office after him in the School of Chemical Engineering.

 

The office features a plaque by the door bearing Klopp’s name, honoring a man who made a lasting contribution to his alma mater through charitable donations and kindness.

 

Klopp had a wonderfully distinguished career, which began with him earning his bachelor’s in 1963 and master’s in 1965, both in chemical engineering from OSU.

 

He worked from 1965-93 at DuPont and Johnson & Johnson from 1993-2009. He spent the bulk of his career in business development, working in licensing, acquisitions, start-up and turnaround management, and strategic planning.

 

When he retired in 2009 from J&J, he was worldwide vice president of business development for the company’s Diabetes Care franchise.

 

With J&J, he led a $2 billion acquisition of diabetes monitoring software that earned the company more than $40 billion in revenue. The software ranked No. 1 in market share, saving more than 1,500 jobs and improving the lives of thousands of diabetes patients.

 

After retirement, he served on the board of directors for Applied BioTech, Inc., a division of Astellas Pharma, Inc., and was the non-executive director for SpeeDd Pty Ltd., a private biotech company in Australia specializing in molecular diagnostics.

 

An industry-recognized expert on diabetes, Klopp was appointed to the research and development committee of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in 2010. 

 

Klopp was inducted into the CEAT Hall of Fame in 2017 and passed away in 2021. Klopp made extremely generous contributions to CEAT and CHE.

 

He established a scholarship to recognize and develop undergraduate peer mentors for core undergraduate chemical engineering courses. His experience as a mentor for the introduction to chemical engineering made him realize the value of such mentorship.

 

The endowment established four $1,500 scholarships annually for students to become mentors for their peers.

 

The sponsors for the plaque were Alan Tye (BS/MS accounting at OSU in 1962 and 1963) his wife Paula Tye and Ann and Rob Whiteley, both of whom graduated from OSU in 1977.