Roger R. Varin was born in Bern, Switzerland, in 1925. He received his B.A. in business administration from City College, Bern, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Bern. He was a research fellow at Harvard University. Varin chiefly worked with fiber chemistry, as a research associate at E. I. dePont de Nemours & Company; director of research at Riegel Textile Corporation; and founder and CEO of Varinit Corporation, Greenville, S.C., manufacturers of specialty fiber products, and Varinit SA, Geneva, Switzerland, traders in specialty fiber products and services. Writing poetry was one of his many hobbies.