Deborah Baum Crain

For much of her career at Eastman Chemical Company, Debbie Crain served in business management roles, taking increasingly high-level responsibility for development and marketing of products ranging from acetyl chemicals to specialty plastics to custom and fine chemicals. In addition, she led new product launches for both Eastman Tritan copolyester and Perennial Wood, both of which positioned Eastman in consumer-facing and retail markets.

Since retiring from Eastman, Crain has taken a strong interest in genealogy, writing more than 20 books and extracting thousands of genealogical records from the villages of Rocca Canavese and Corio in Piemonte, Italy. She also researched and wrote two extensive family histories tracing her maternal ancestors from those small villages in northern Italy to the United States and beyond.

She has begun researching her paternal ancestors from the village of Buer, Melle, Germany for a future book.

Crain earned her Master of Business Administration from the Univeristy of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School in 1989, and received her Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1985.