George F. Vesley

Class of 1962: Corporate chemist

With 45 years of photochemistry experience, George F. Vesley has contributed innovation and expertise to the development of products that continue to enhance products used in industry and everyday life.

He was born June 12, 1940, in Omaha, Nebraska, and grew up in towns in the Chicago area. At Ripon, he majored in chemistry and mathematics and graduated with honors in chemistry.

He received his Master of Arts in chemistry from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1964; and his doctorate in organic chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, in 1968.

He first worked on the scientific research staff of Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Michigan, from 1967-1969 and was an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, from 1969-1973.

In 1973, he began a nearly 30-year career as a corporate scientist with 3M Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. He worked in various technologies including printing plates, releasable films, multilayered extruded films, adhesives for window film (Scotch Tint), and electronically switchable window film, a privacy film.

VHB (Very High Bond) is a high-performance pressure-sensitive adhesive used for adhering body side moldings to cars; adhering siding and windows in buildings; industrial applications to replace rivets and reduce weight in holding pieces of sheet aluminum or steel together; and holding the electronic layers together in video screens in flat TV’s, tablets and phones.
Vesley said VHS products are marketed as the world’s strongest pressure-sensitive adhesive and they are sold at outlets such as Home Depot, Menards, Target,
Uline and Amazon as a mounting tape.

“There are more than 200 3M products sold using this technology that have been worth several billion dollars over the 40 years it has been on the market,” he said, and 3M has made enough VHB tape to go to the moon and back 10 times.

To increase the speed of production, Vesley said, “I developed a new process control test and a simple quality test to determine when the product had the necessary finished properties. My test took five minutes where the old test took 10,000 minutes.”

Another process he perfected is used to make 3M’s Red Dot conductive
electrodes used in grounding plates and electrodes for EKG scans and to
make an optical clear adhesive.

Vesley is the author or co-author of 24 articles published in scientific journals and the inventor or co-inventor of 32 U.S. issued patents. His honors include several industry and 3M corporate awards, election to The Professional Society of Imagineers in 1985, and election to Carlton Society, 3M’s highest technical reward recognizing outstanding contributions to 3M’s science and technology.

He received Ripon’s Distinguished Alumni Citation in 2012.

Since his retirement from 3M in 2001, Vesley has operated his own consulting firm, GV Consulting LLC. He also published an article in the April 2025 issue of Model Railroader magazine and is working on another article on the same topic.

“I enjoyed the challenge of solving problems with good science,” he said. “At 3M, I was able to do some good science and help make new useful products which allow end users to make new products and improve existing products.”