Obituary of Howard G. Gillette

Howard G. Gillette passed away on January 19, 2018 at age 89.  The Funeral Service is 1 p.m. Monday, January 22, 2018 in the chapel of Sellars Funeral Home, Lebanon TN.  The family will be receiving friends on Monday at the funeral home from 11 a.m. until the service.  Interment in Wilson County Memorial will follow the service.  Family and friends will serve as Pallbearers.

               Mr. Gillette is survived by daughters Julia (Tony) Chaffin and Tina (John) Drnek, grandchildren Dustin Chaffin, Kelly (Art) Snyder, Jared Chaffin, and Christopher (Caitlin) Drnek, great-granddaughter Addison Snyder, and sister Edna Sturni.  He is preceded in death by wife Ruth Gillette.

               Mr. Gillette was born in Fairborn, OH to the late Malcome Hall and Ada Holzfaster Gillette, and he is preceded in death by his sister Marcia Gillette Hunter.  Howard’s hobbies were reading, golf, inventing, historical research, some automobile collecting, and spending time with the family.  He graduated from Enon Ohio High School in June 1946 and placed third in his class of 35 students.  He completed an evening Chemistry course from University of Dayton, math courses from Wrights Patterson Air Force Base and also attended a fall quarter at University of Cincinnati in Chemical Engineering in 1947.  He told his family that college wasn’t his thing.

               Before retirement, Howard worked as a cement lab technician developing many charts and formulas with the Chief Chemist to enable technician’s speed when blasting limestone.  He then worked for Monsanto Chemical Co running analysis of radioactivity levels of products for US Atomic Energy Commission until the facility relocated.  In 1948 Howard started his rubber career as one of two technicians performing tests on rubber qualification for the Air Force.

               Howard was drafted to the US Army in 1950. After basic training in Fort Knox, Howard was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Georgia and received a job as a Medical Lab Technician.  The 4th Division sailed to Germany as the first full division sent to Europe since World War II and returned home after 15 months service with an honorable discharge in September 1952.

               Howard furthered his career in rubber on October 1952 as a technician for Precision Rubber in Dayton Ohio and was promoted to Chief Chemist 13 months later.  In September 1963, he was promoted to Director of Research and development and moved the department to Lebanon TN and later promoted to Vice President in the 1970’s.  He served as a committee chairman in several chemical and rubber societies.  His articles on “The Application of O-Rings”, Materials Aspects and Testing of O-Rings and the “Transfer of O-Rings” were published in Seals Book of Design News, foreign journals and Rubber World.  Sellars Funeral Home, Lebanon TN 615.444.9393.