(1923–2015) was an American engineer and philanthropist.
Rowan University was named for him, after he made a $100-million donation.He was born in Raphine, Virginia, to Henry M.
Rowan Sr.
and Margaret Frances Boyd Rowan on December 4, 1923 (coincidentally the same year the school which now carries his name was founded).
He grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey and, after serving as a bomber pilot in World War II with the United States Army Air Forces, Rowan attended Williams College and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with honors with a degree in electrical engineering.Rowan originally worked for Ajax Electrothermic Corporation of Trenton, New Jersey.
He suggested improvements to the furnaces made by Ajax—shorter power leads and heavier copper bus bar—but the company did not implement his suggestions.
Rowan left Ajax and decided to start his own company, Inductotherm Corp.
Rowan designed and built his first induction furnace in 1953 in the garage of his home in Ewing Township, New Jersey with the help of his wife.
Expanding from this first induction furnace Rowan created Inductotherm Industries Inc.
which has since grown to include 80 subsidiaries throughout North America, South America, Europe, India, Asia and Australia.
Today, there are more than 27,000 Inductotherm induction melting installations worldwide and they account for more than half of the melting systems in the world today.