Reatha Clark King
Reatha Clark King (born April 11, 1938) is a chemist; the former Vice President of the General Mills Corporation; and the former President, Executive Director, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the General Mills Foundation, the philanthropic foundation of General Mills, Inc.
King was employed for five years as a Research Chemist for the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. She was the first African American female chemist to work at the agency. Her work there involved measuring the accurate heats of formation of gaseous fluorine compounds, and she received a Meritorious Publication Award for her paper on fluoride flame calorimetry. This research was important to the NASA space program. Her two children were born during this time.
King and her family moved to New York when her husband accepted a position at Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York. King obtained an assistant professorship at York College, City University of New York. There she served as Professor of Chemistry, 1968–1977, Associate Dean for Division of Natural Science & Mathematics, 1970-1974, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, 1974-1977.
She moved to Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota, to become President of Metropolitan State University, where she worked from 1977–1988. She helped to substantially expand the university, and promoted involvement of minorities and women in higher education. Her husband joined the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) as a research chemist.
In 1988, Dr. King was recruited by General Mills in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to serve in two roles. She became Vice President of the General Mills Corporation and President and Executive Director of the General Mills Foundation. She remained in these positions from 1988-2002. In 2002, she was elected as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of General Mills Foundation, and served in this position for a further year, retiring completely from General Mills in 2003. Under her leadership the General Mills Foundation, originally established in 1954, has been active both locally and nationally in philanthropic and community service.
Dr. King has served on the boards of a number of other corporations including ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo & Company; Department 56; Minnesota Mutual Companies; and the H. B. Fuller Company. She has also served with nonprofits, such as the International Trachoma Initiative, Allina Health, the Council on Foundations, the National Association of Corporate Directors, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. She has served as a trustee with Clark Atlanta University, and is a Life Trustee for the University of Chicago. She is a member of the American Council on Education and the Executive Leadership Council in Washington, D.C. She has a particularly strong interest in education, and has stated: “I realized early in life that education is our best enabling resource, that technical skills are important, and that my stamina for championing educational opportunity for all people is inexhaustible.”
Content: Wikipedia
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