About > Professional Life

A new chapter of my life began after graduation. After being hired by Beckman Coulter in their Laboratory Automation Operations (LAO) division, I relocated to River Vale, NJ (northern Bergen County) in July 2000. LAO was a small division (50 people) who were responsible for helping laboratories in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotech environments help keep track of their product testing-related information. We call this type of system a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).

In July 2003 Beckman Coulter's LAO division was acquired by Philadelphia-based InnaPhase corporation. InnaPhase already had a firm foothold in the LIMS industry with their Waton, Galileo, Kinetica, and EP products. With the addition of LabManager to their product lineup, it cemented their position as the leading supplier of enterprise LIMS solutions to the pharmaceutical industry.

As a result of the LAO / InnaPhase acquisition, I was able to transfer to InnaPhase's Philadelphia office. I purchased a house in the Philadelphia suburbs and transferred to Philadelphia in September 2003. This is truly the best of all possible worlds. With continued strong support from my colleagues in our northern New Jersey office plus the beehive of activity in Philadelphia, I am well-suited to assist my traditional Lab Manager customers and communicate the future of InnaPhase in our new LIMS products, Newton and Thompson.

When explaining the nature of a LIMS, I frequently give the example of a pharmaceutical company that produces aspirin tablets. For each batch coming off the assembly line, the manufacturer would typically take measurements to ensure product quality. For example, they might visually inspect the packaging, perform analytical chemistry testing to determine the amount of active ingredient, or see how much of the pill dissolves in water. This is the type of information that our software keeps track of.

My official title is "consultant," though that does nothing to explain what I do. As an aside, my former title at Beckman was Project Manager -- also rather vague. Professional services consultants at InnaPhase are jacks-of-all-trades. We gather technical requirements from customers, write specification documents, design and implement information technology solutions for customers, and more.

Based on my multi-faceted background as a chemist and a Web designer, I've become the main resource for implementing our browser-based product. Customers are clamoring for an easily-deployed interface. New customers almost always want to have a browser interface for the simple fact that employees already know how to use a Web browser.

My position has also included some unique experiences that are outside the normal scope of a project manager. As part of a marketing study for a new product, I was one member of a cross-functional team that spent a few months interviewing current and potential customers. I've also had the opportunity to teach highly specialized Web design courses to customers.

Travel opportunities have also abounded -- both domestic and international. This job has taken me to Europe twice (Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, and Croatia), and to China in the summer of 2004.

In the summer of 2004 InnaPhase was apparently a ripe target for an acquisition. Thermo Electron, the world leader in analytical instruments, bought the complete assets of InnaPhase. This marked the second acquisition I'd been through in 14 months. The Informatics division of Thermo has relocated to my Philadelphia office, which is great from the standpoint that I'm in the center of the action. Despite the change in ownership, there essentially wasn't any change in my duties or job description, which is comforting.