I specifically remember my first day as a chemist with the FDA and not just because it was the first time I was expected to wear a tie to work. After leaving college, and a challenging, but predictable laboratory experience, I stepped into an extremely complicated, fast paced lab, an alternate reality where instead viewing food as something to eat, I was tasked with determining its fat or nitrate content. And if I was grinding up fish and pureeing crabs in a blender for part of my day, why exactly did I need to wear a tie to work? But as my first official job as a freshly graduated professional, I absolutely loved it. As remarkable as that memory was and still is to me, writing this blog gives me the same level of nervousness I felt that very first day. Back then I wondered if I would really be able to put into action what I had just spent years learning, and curiously I have exactly the same fear now.

I enjoy working with the chemicals of life. I have worked all over the earth in nearly every kind of facility; from China to Africa, Alaska and Antarctica, from 20,000 ft. high gold mines to below-sea-level salt mines and from small university graduate study labs to NASA space based laboratory projects. I love every type of lab and every type of process I work with and so I look forward to continuing to work with the autoanalyzer through the connections that this blog will create.

My intention is to share the autoanalyzer skills which I have learned over the past 20 years, since I left college. I still thrive on the quest to solve problems for my customers and help create a stable, well running lab.

Looking forward to our conversations,

Ken