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CORVALLIS - Robert West Lundeen, former chairman of the board of Dow Chemical and former chief executive officer of Tektronix, has been named the 1997 recipient of the E.B. Lemon Award at Oregon State University.

The annual award, given by the OSU Alumni Association, is the university's top alumni award and will be presented on Friday, May 9, in a special ceremony at the Corvallis Country Club.

The award is named in honor of E.B. Lemon, a prominent OSU alumnus, faculty member and administrator who died in 1979.

An avid supporter of OSU, Lundeen helped initiate the campaign to remodel and expand the university's Valley Library. He and his wife, Betty, have been one of three couple co-chairs of the campaign.

Lundeen has been a member of the OSU Foundation Board of Trustees since 1983 and formerly served on the foundation's executive committee. Until recently he was a member of the College of Engineering Advisory Board and the Chemical Engineering Advisory Board.

He received the OSU Distinguished Service Award in 1983.

The Lundeens also have supported OSU with gifts benefiting the library campaign, the Arthur R. Lundeen Forestry Student Communications Laboratory, the Center for the Humanities, the Milton Harris Chair in materials science, chemical engineering, the Trustee Leadership Fund and other programs.

Lundeen received his bachelor's degree from OSU in chemical engineering in 1942. He served in World War II as a weather officer with the U.S. Army Air Corps in China, advanced to the rank of major, and earned a bronze star.

In 1946, he joined Dow Chemical as a research and development engineer. He became the first president of Dow Chemical Pacific Ltd. in Hong Kong in 1966 and led a major expansion of Dow's business in Asia and the Pacific. In 1973 he was elected to the board of directors of Dow Chemical, became an executive vice president in 1978 and chairman of the board in 1982. He retired from Dow in 1986.

Lundeen served on the board of directors of Tektronix Corporation for six years and was chairman of the board from 1987 to 1991. He took direct control of Tektronix in 1990 as chief executive officer, initiating the company's financial turnaround.

Lundeen has served as director of Asahi-Dow, Ltd., Chemical Bank and Trust Company and Dowell Schlumberger. He was a member of the Advisory Council on Japan-U.S. Economic Relations and the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council. He is an honorary trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and has been a trustee of the Kettering Foundation and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation and chairman of the Michigan Partnership for Education Task Force.

He was elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, was Kappa Sigma Man of the Year in 1987 and has been presented the Republic of Korea, Order of Industrial Service Merit award.