2021 Alumni Achievement Award: Todd Werpy '85

Todd Werpy’s father Galen was a baker in Marshall for 50 years. “He retired once, got bored in three days, and went back to work. He’d go in at 2 a.m. He loved it,” he said.

It took Werpy just a couple of days working alongside his father to know “that I didn’t have that vision for myself.”

He chose another path, and today is the Senior Vice President and Chief Science Officer for ADM, a Fortune 500 company of nearly 40,000 employees based in Chicago, Ill.

He graduated in 1985 with a degree in Chemistry from what was then Southwest State University. And had it not been for a gentle nudge from his mother Mary his life would be vastly different.

“To be honest, I didn’t enjoy high school that much. I thought about the Air Force. Mom finally told me to go to college for one year, and if I didn’t like it, I could do something else. l ultimately stayed in college for nine years.”

He thought to himself, OK, if I have to do this, I’m going to do something I like. “For me, in high school, that was chemistry and physics” he said. “At SMSU, (chemistry) was accredited by the American Chemical Society.”

And at that time, he had engaged faculty members like Ed Carberry, Robert Eliason and John Thomas, each in their own way big influences during his time at SMSU. “A big factor for me, too, was that it was affordable,” he said. “I never had more than eight people in a major class — I was getting a private school education at a public school price. If I remember correctly, I had just eight juniors and seniors taking fourth-year courses.”

That’s a far cry from Michigan State, where he earned his Ph.D in chemistry. “I liked the class sizes at SMSU, and the one-on-one attention. I went from that to Michigan State, to a school of 48,000 and 300 people in a class. It was a different dynamic.”

He’s the fourth in his family to graduate from SMSU. Two sisters and a brother are also alumni.

Upon graduation from Michigan State, “I had the opportunity to work at the Michigan Biotechnology Institute, a small biotech company (and one of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories). It was a really cool experience. I had the opportunity to work with university faculty who were on the staff there and had a lot of exposure to engineering and biotech. I was at an impressionable point in my career, and it was a good decision.”

From there he went to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where for 15 years he was responsible for research and business development for new chemicals and chemical intermediates from renewable feedstocks.

He joined ADM in 2007 as Senior Vice President, Research & Development. He oversaw ADM’s efforts to expand its product portfolio while strengthening its research partnerships with government agencies, academic institutions and corporations.

He was then promoted to his present position, which includes a seat at the table of the company’s Executive Council.

“From a career perspective, I’ve been fortunate,” he said. As a member of the Executive Council, he has a voice in the company’s strategy, capital allocations and investment decisions, while advocating for research and development initiatives, “which create added value for ADM.”

What’s ADM? It’s a global leader in human and animal nutrition, and the world’s premier agricultural origination and processing company. “ADM touches everyone’s life, but you might not know it,” he said. “It’s a Fortune 500 company, but is generally business-to-business. It’s tough to go through a day where you’re not in contact with an ADM ingredient, whether that’s food you eat or gas you use to drive. I’ve always found that interesting.”

In other words, the name may not be on the bag, but ADM plays a part in the ingredients. Brush your teeth? Use paper? Feed a pet? Eat a veggie burger? ADM is involved. It has a plant in Marshall, which brings him back home occasionally.

He holds 30 U.S. patents in the area of catalysis and chemical conversions of biomass to chemicals, and was selected as the 2015 American Chemical Society Award for Affordable Green Chemistry.

The best part of his job? “I feel I have a lot of influence in the direction we’ve taken in science and technology, and individuals have an opportunity, and a voice. ADM is a large company, and I’m not sure you can say that about a lot of large companies. You’re not a number at ADM. It’s an amazingly collaborative organization.”

Werpy met his wife, Aundrea, in Decatur. Together, they have three children: Courtney, Chase and Reagan.

“I am humbled by the Alumni Association award,” he said. “SMSU gave me a solid foundation, and I have such fond memories of my time there. I’m very grateful.”