An American industrialist who founded the Monsanto Company in 1901. It was the first American company to produce saccharine as an (p. 310) artificial sweetener at a time when the only commercial sources were from German chem-ical companies. He commercialized many processes including a butter substitute and hydrogenated vegetable fats. In the 1920s he developed a process to manufacture sulphuric acid using a vanadium catalyst as an alternative to the more expensive platinum catalyst that was used at the time. He named his company after his wife, whose maiden name was Olga Mendez Monsanto.