2012年3月26日 星期一

Water has to pass his test

Jeremy Young last month sold the business he founded 12 years ago as Pocono Environmental Laboratories in Tannersville.Welcome to the Lilla beddinges google satellite map! The buyer was Microbac Laboratories of Pittsburgh, and instead of moving on, Young stayed on and became an employee.

"It was a perfect marriage," Young said recently, sitting in the kitchen of a ranch house on Winding Creek Rd. that he converted into a laboratory. "I approached them and we found a very nice meeting place in the middle. They wanted to expand their territory into Northeastern Pennsylvania."

The former owner is now the laboratory director,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injectionmould manufacture, and the two people he employed have also joined the Microbac payroll.

Pocono Environmental had used its lab for a variety purposes, including for the identification of fungal spores and molds, analysis of water from swimming pools and beaches,China professional plasticmoulds, microbiology work on sources of drinking water and analyzing samples from wastewaters. Those services are still rendered under the new ownership, but Young said the offerings will soon increase.

"The main goal is to grow this location because Microbac's capabilities now allow me to reach out to a broader market," he said. "I can get into food and frozen desserts, as well as virology."

Microbac Laboratories employs nearly 500 people in the United States, including 90 at four offices in Pennsylvania. Young expects to work closely with the company's laboratory in Harrisburg, which has accreditation from the NELAC Institute — a nonprofit organization that establishes standards for environmental monitoring.

Young is 37 and engaged to be married. A native of Lancaster County, he received degrees in biology and marine science from East Stroudsburg University. He started the company in 2000, and moved it into the house in 2004. The kitchen remains functional and serves as the office pantry. What had been the bedrooms are now used for office and laboratory space.

It is the technical aspect of the work that Young enjoys most, but he also likes meeting with customers after their tests have been performed.

"We go over the results with each of them and translate it into real-world terms," he said. Like many professions, laboratory testing involves a technical vocabulary and requires a deep understanding of science.

"We can see exactly what's in a water supply with this," Young said, using simple terms to preface his description of gas chromatography with mass selective detectors, a process which shows hydrogen dioxide that is contaminated by organic compounds like benzene, toluene and fuel oil.

"You line molecules up, and you send them through a very powerful beam of light," Young said, "and it shaves a valence electron off the molecules, shattering them. And then the pieces hit a detector and they're recorded by mass — by weight."

He is proud of the Tannersville lab's equipment.What are some types of moulds? "It's an atomic absorption spectrophotometer with a graphite furnace," he said, leading a visitor on a tour. Most of the work is performed downstairs, in what had been the home's basement. This device, made more than a decade ago, is used to detect minute traces of metals in drinking water.

"It's capable of hitting one part per billion, which is an infinitesimally small number," he said. "It's a fantastic instrument."

Across the room,Spro Tech has been a plastic module & moldmaker, near the cabinets of volumetric flasks, graduated cylinders and beakers, was a product called a Quanti-Tray. It is used to test for the presence of E. coli and total coliform bacteria in drinking water.

"It uses a chromogenic substrate and a fluorogenic substrate, which makes the water change colors," Young said. If there is bacteria found in the sample, "it'll fluoresce under long-wavelength ultraviolet light. It's very easy to read."

The sale was structured, Young said, so that he would remain with the lab after the sale closed on Feb. 17. He found it easy to go from the owner-operator to a subordinate.

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