Tomlinson FORT Jr.

FORT, JR., Tomlinson Centennial Professor Emeritus at Vanderbilt University, passed away peacefully on Thursday, the 13th of September, 2012 in Franklin, TN at age 80. A Memorial Service will be held at Vanderbilt Benton Chapel from two o'clock until three o'clock in the afternoon Sunday, the 23rd of September, 2012. Visitation with the family will immediately follow from three o'clock until four o'clock in the afternoon. A Graveside Service will be held at the Oakview Cemetery in Albany, GA, where he will be buried in the family plot alongside his parents and grandparents. Born on April 16, 1932 in Sumter, SC, Prof. Fort was raised in Athens, GA and graduated from Athens High School, and earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Georgia in 1952. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Surface Chemistry from the University of Tennessee in 1957. He then did post-doctoral work for a year at the University of Sydney in Australia. After seven years as a Research Chemist at Dupont Company, he embarked on an academic career that lasted almost forty years, serving on the faculties of Case Western Reserve University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) and California Polytechnic State University before coming to Vanderbilt in 1989. He was Head of the Chemical Engineering Departments at Carnegie Mellon and at Vanderbilt, Provost at UMR and Provost and Vice President at Cal Poly. During this time, he and his students published over eighty scientific research papers and he served as advisor and mentor for twenty- one M.S. and twenty Ph.D. candidates. His diverse set of graduate students brought him much joy over his long career. Prof. Fort was an active member of the American Chemical Society, serving in multiple leadership positions and at his death was an Emeritus member. He was one of the founders of Langmuir, a professional journal of colloid and surface chemistry and was also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Sigma Xi, Phi Beta Delta, the International Association of Colloid and Interface Scientists, Alpha Chi Sigma, Gamma Sigma Epsilon and the Knights of Pythias. Active in the Delta Chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity from the time he was a freshman at UGA, Prof. Fort was one of the founders of two new Sigma Chi chapters: one at UMR and the other at Cal Poly. In 1956, he married the former Martha Kirby and with her had two children, Tomlinson (Marcella) and Frances Clare (Joseph Cress). He has five grandchildren, Breanna, Marena and Connor Fort, and Clayton and Lucy Cress. In 1998, he married Nancy Harris Blackwelder, and became stepfather to her three sons, Wayne, Tom and Dean Blackwelder. He is survived by all these people, along with his brothers, Jim and John Fort. In 1994, Prof. Fort bought Centennial Hall, a National Historic Register property near Franklin, and the only remaining original building from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition held in 1897. Turning this historic building into a showplace, he and his wife Nancy made Centennial Hall their home for over 13 years. Tomlinson Fort, Jr. will be remembered by family, friends and colleagues for not only his prolific academic life, but his love and appreciation for history, especially family history, his agility and joy on the dance floor, his love of music and beautiful singing voice, his love of travel and sailing, and, later in life, his penchant for a scotch at 5 p.m. in the afternoon. In lieu of customary remembrances, memorial contributions may be made to the National Parkinson Foundation.