Leake, Preston Hildebrand., Ph.D.
(ATC Organic chemist, Dept of Research & QA Head)Biographical Information:
Preston Hildebrand Leake was born on a farm in Albemarle County, Virginia, on August 8, 1929, the youngest of five children of Perry Hansford Leake (1888-1964) and the former Lydia Viola Cox (1890-1987). Both the Leakes and the Coxes were old Virginia families, as too were the Hildebrands, a name that Preston was given as his middle name because it had been the family name of his paternal grandmother.
Leake did his undergraduate studies at University of Virginia, where he majored in Chemistry and earned a B.A. in 1950. He then began graduate work at Duke University, where he focused on organic chemistry. In 1953 he earned a master's degree after writing a thesis that concerned the Pschorr synthesis. One year later he earned a Ph.D. for a dissertation entitled (in part), "The Structure Determination and Synthesis of Some Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds." Shortly after completing his doctorate, Leake married Elizabeth Ann Kelly in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 5, 1954.
Leake then accepted a job with the Allied Chemical Corporation and spent the next six years conducting research in the company's Nitrogen Division. Six years later he went to work for the Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Company and served for five years as that firm's assistant research director. In 1965 he accepted a position with the American Tobacco Company, where he worked for the rest of his career. After three years as assistant to the managing director for research and development, he was promoted to assistant managing director in 1968 and to assistant director for research and development department in 1970. During the 1970s he also served as chairman of the Industry Technical Committee. He became director of the research and development department in 1987 and was named a vice president in 1989, retaining that position until his retirement.
During his time at the Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Company, Leake also served as an adjunct professor of organic chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University. After joining the American Tobacco Company, he was an industry representative to the Council for Tobacco Research from 1977-1988. In light of his longtime involvement with the research done by the American Tobacco Company, Leake testified in the Horton, Girton/Gunsalus, and Grinnell cases. His testimony covered such topics as the company's use of additives, the tests it conducted during the manufacturing process, the role played by filters, and the presence of various chemicals in the tobacco. Questioning focused in particular on the steps taken to test for pesticides and poisons in tobacco. In the mid-1990s he served as an expert witness in a patent lawsuit in Toronto.
After retirement, Dr. Leake took a deep interest in family history and published a number of books on genealogical topics, including The Descendants of Anderson Etherton and Millicent Hall (1995), Some Descendants of Peter Leake, 1750-1815, and Hannah Wade, 1759-1823 (1996), Some Descendants of William Leake 1780-1808 and His Wife, Priscilla 1760-1816 (1996), Documents Relating to the Revolutionary War Service of Josiah Leake (1998), Some Descendants of Two Brothers, Who Lived in Orange County, Virginia: William Cox, Died about 1751 and James Cox, Born before 1700, Died about 1739 (2000), Some Descendants of Andrew Etherton and His Wife, Millicent Hall (2002), The Descendants of John W. Leake, Born June 7, 1849, Died November 30, 1915 in Page County, Virginia and His Wife, Sarah C. Nauman, Born September, 1849, Died July 12, 1935 in Page County, Virginia (2003), Some Descendants of Hans Conrad Hildebrand, Jr., Born February 12, 1699 ... Died May 1790 ... and His Two Wives, Susanna Spengler, Born about 1699 ... Died about 1738 ... and Elisabeth Kundig, Born about 1705 ... Died after 1759 (2003), and Some Descendants of William Leake and His Wife Mary Bostick (2006). He has also edited Life Is Very Uncertain and Death Is Sure (2001), a collection of letters written during the Civil War by two brothers, Henry Marshall Dunn and Leroy E. Dunn.
Sources:
Allan M. Brandt, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America (New York: Basic Books, 2007).
"Deposition of PRESTON H. LEAKE, December 9, 1987, HORTON v. AMERICAN TOBACCO CO." http://tobaccodocuments.org/datta/LeakeP120987.html.
"Deposition of PRESTON H. LEAKE, May 4, 1987, HORTON v. AMERICAN TOBACCO CO." http://tobaccodocuments.org/datta/LeakeP050487.html.
"Deposition of PRESTON HILDEBRAND LEAKE, Ph.D., November 30, 1988, GRINNELL v. AMERICAN TOBACCO CO." http://tobaccodocuments.org/datta/LEAKEP113088.html.
Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
"Preston Hildebrand Leake." Marquis Who's Who, 2009. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center (Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009).
"Trial testimony of PRESTON H. LEAKE, January 20, 1988, HORTON v. AMERICAN TOBACCO CO." http://tobaccodocuments.org/datta/LEAKEP012088.html.
"Trial testimony of PRESTON H. LEAKE, January 21, 1988, HORTON v. AMERICAN TOBACCO CO." http://tobaccodocuments.org/datta/LEAKEP012188.html.
Synonyms
Leake, Preston H.Leake, Preston H., Ph.D.