Reatha King

Reatha Belle Clark King (born April 11, 1938) is an American 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.

Early life and education Reatha Belle Clark was born in Pavo, Georgia, United States on April 11, 1938. Her father, Willie B. Clark, was a sharecropper, and her mother, Ola Mae Watts Campbell, had only a third-grade education.

Reatha Clark began elementary school in a one-room school for grades 1–7, at Mt. Zion Baptist, a colored church, where she was taught by Florence Frazier.

Clark was recruited to attend Clark College in Atlanta, where she initially enrolled as a home economics major. She was encouraged to become a research chemist by the head of the chemistry department there, Alfred Spriggs. While in Chicago she also met and married N. Judge King.

Reatha Clark King later earned a master's in business administration in finance management from Columbia University while on sabbatical.

Scientific and academic career King was employed for five years (1963–1968) as a research chemist for the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. Hired by George T. Armstrong, King was the first African American female chemist to work at the agency. Much of her work there involved measuring the accurate heats of formation of gaseous fluorine compounds,

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 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."

Publications

King, R. C. and Armstrong, G. T. (1964). Heat of combustion and heat of formation of aluminum carbide. Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards (A. Physics and Chemistry), 68A(6), pp. 661–668. King, R. C. and Armstrong, G. T. (1965). Heat of formation of aluminum carbide. Technical News Bulletin, 49(2), pp. 26–27. (Photo on cover of issue.) King, R. C., and Armstrong, G. T., Chapter 8: Fluorine Flame Calorimetry. II. The heats of reaction of oxygen difluoride, fluorine and oxygen, with hydrogen. The heat of formation of oxygen difluoride. In National Bureau of Standards (1 January 1967) NBS Report 9500: Preliminary report on the thermodynamic properties of selected light-element and some related compounds. U.S. Air Force Order No. OAR ISSA 65-8. King, R. C., and Armstrong, G. T. (May 1967) Interagency Chemical Rocket Propellant Group, Thermochemistry Working Croup, Bulletin of the Fifth Meeting March 15–17, 1967, Vol. 1., Chemical Propulsion Information Agency. Publications CPIA 146, pp 69–96. King, Reatha C., and Armstrong, George T. (1968) "Constant Pressure Flame Calorimetry With Fluorine II. The Heat of Formation of Oxygen Difluoride." Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards (A. Physics and Chemistry), 72A (2), pp. 113–131. Received Meritorious Publication Award, 1969. International Citizen Award, 2013, from the International Leadership Institute (ILI), Minneapolis, MN. Louis W. Hill, Jr. Fellow in Philanthropy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Center of the University of Minnesota, 2004. 1984.