When Physicist Richard S. Morse founded his National Research Corp. in Cambridge, Mass. 15 years ago, he started out with two basic ideas. On the scientific side he wanted to develop new products and processes and then get help from bigger companies to put them into production. On the financial side he believed that investors were more interested in growth industries and capital gains than a quick cash return; instead of paying dividends, his company would plow back its earnings into new projects that would pay off investors in capital gains as they grew. Both ideas have been so successful that Nation al Research has blossomed from a $50,000 investment into a $4,500,000 research company, with 150 patent applications and profitable tie-in agreements with seven big companies using its discoveries. Last week National Research helped to launch two more big companies in new fields. The two:
¶ The United Gas Corp., world's biggest integrated gas system, which will go into the petrochemical field. United Gas and its former parent company, Electric Bond & Share Co., will build a $23 million gas cracking plant near Pensacola, Fla. and National Research will buy a 10% interest in it. At first, United's plant will make only anhydrous ammonia, the new chemical fertilizer that increases crop yields up to 300%. But a 40-man task force of National scientists has been at work for four years developing several new cracking processes that will eventually put United's Florida plant to work making other petrochemicals from natural gas.
¶ The $362 million Monsanto Chemical Co., which, with National Research as a partner, will go into the titanium business. The two companies expect shortly to sign a contract with the Government to build a $1,750,000 pilot plant to test National Research's revolutionary method of refining titanium. The method will be the first practical non-Kroll* process: by bypassing the rough, sponge stage now necessary in titanium refining, National Research expects to turn out highly purified metal crystals that can then be melted down into solid metal. If the idea pans out it should cut the cost of titanium (now $5 a lb.) enough so that it will find a vast number of new uses.
The Airless Wonder. As a mouse teamed up with industry's elephants, National Research has done well because President Morse, 43, is a rare combination of scientist and businessman. An M.I.T. graduate ('33) who worked for Eastman Kodak until he decided that he could do better on his own, Morse started out with the basic idea that high-vacuum (i.e., removing all the air) techniques could be useful to U.S. business. He and his staff developed machines efficient enough to suck all but a cupful of air out of an area as big as Chicago's Union Station. Then he worked out ways to use vacuum processes to dehydrate foods without killing vitamins or taste, refine metals better by keeping out impurities formed by the metals' contact with air, powder drugs faster than before, and coat delicate optical lenses with chemicals to improve light transmission up to 200%.