Dr. John Lee Coulter

John Lee Coulter was a key figure in an early-day agricultural "think tank" that resulted in the formation of the National Raw Materials Council, which ultimately became the National Organization for Raw Materials. He can legitimately be considered one of the NORM's "Founding Fathers."

His doctorate degree from the University of Wisconsin was entitled: "Industrial History of the Valley of the Red River of the North," and dealt with the Bonanza farms.

Coulter was introduced into the study of raw material economics by Charles B. Ray and General Wood of Sears & Roebuck. As President of North Dakota A&M (now North Dakota State University in Fargo), and as U.S. Tariff Commissioner, he reasoned out many of the fundamentals upon which raw materials economics research would hinge. He "saw" the implications of the growth of free world trade and how that trade could become hurtful unless conducted on mutually beneficial conditions and unless confined to those items and services the U.S. economy truly needed.

Accordingly, he traced free unregulated international trade and its effect on domestic and international economic stability. His findings put him solidly in the camp of all those who reasoned that raw materials and physics had a primacy role in the development and maintenance of an economy -- exactly as Benjamin Franklin has proclaimed during the nation's formation as a capitalistic Republic.