James F. Schumar was a metallurgist. In 1940, he became Chief Metallurgist at Wolverine Tube Company. In that capacity, he developed procedures for cladding metallic uranium fuel rods with aluminum and a method to extrude and machine uranium for Hanford’s B Reactor and Chicago Pile-3. In 1946, he was became associate director of the Metallurgy Division at Argonne National Laboratory.