Flavor and friendship fill his life, so it was no surprise that both overflowed at a recent colloquium in his honor.

He is Professor Emeritus Walt Jennings, the chemist, inventor and entrepreneur who retired from the Department of Food Science and Technology in 1988 after 35 years at UC Davis. He joined the faculty immediately after finishing graduate school here.

Jennings, 88, gave the keynote address at the Oct. 8 colloquium in the AGR Room at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Sporting one of his signature bow ties and sparkling with the same intellect and wit that inspired his students, he reviewed the serendipitous aspects of bringing his discoveries to the flavor business.

Flavor chemists like Jennings extract aromas from their natural sources, then identify and synthesize the aromas for use in foods, beverages, soaps and cosmetics. They do this with gas chromatography —the science of separating and identifying volatile compounds.

In his early work, he isolated the aroma of the Bartlett pear, and described the aromas of apples, apricots, citrus fruits and milk. His glassblowing skills were essential, since he built his own glass columns to perform the separations.

The department chair, however, was skeptical of chromatography’s practical value and insisted that Jennings investigate the sanitizing of hard surfaces. Jennings dutifully obliged and published groundbreaking discoveries on the removal of “films,” thin layers of buildup on equipment. He applied this research to his columns, and, as technology advanced, the columns became central to commercial systems. In 1974, he and a graduate student co-founded J&W Scientific and nurtured it into the world’s leading column manufacturer and distributor.

UC licensed one of Jennings’ inventions to Hewlett-Packard, and, in 2000, the H-P spinoff Agilent Technologies acquired J&W Scientific and its 50,000-square-foot Folsom site where 80 people make 1,000 kinds of gas chromatography columns. They are used routinely in food, flavor, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and environmental laboratories.

Agilent cosponsored the colloquium and still uses Jennings’ name and portrait in promotional materials for “Agilent J&W columns.” Some of them, for example, are used to ensure that pesticides in baby food are kept below the maximum 1 part per billion.

Professor Heikki Kalio said he could have stayed in Finland to advocate for his department’s budget at the University of Turku. Instead, he said, he felt compelled to come to Davis to honor his mentor.

Kalio was one of several speakers who attributed Jennings’ success to his respect and appreciation of people as well as his enthusiasm for teaching and learning. In turn, Jennings thanked 100 students, postdocs and collaborators from 25 countries — putting up these people’s names on a slide.

Kalio said he had once joined Jennings for beer after a conference, in a ritual as much about friendship and the flavor of beer as the science of gas chromatography.

Suanne J. Klahorst is a senior writer in the Department of Viticulture and Enology. She is a 1988 graduate of UC Davis, receiving a bachelor’s degree in food science.