Walter Samuel Carpenter, Jr. was a corporate executive at DuPont who oversaw the company’s involvement in the Manhattan Project. In 1919, at the age of thirty-one, Carpenter was elected to DuPont’s board of directors, the first member who was not from the du Pont family.
Carpenter served on the finance committee from 1930 until 1940, and was elected president from 1940 until 1948. Under his leadership, DuPont supplied explosives and other war materials during World War II. He also guided DuPont’s involvement in the Manhattan Project, which included the construction of nuclear reactors in Oak Ridge, TN, as well as Hanford, Washington.