Used state-of-the art analytical chemistry equipment and software to perform pollution, nutrient and basic testing on water and soil.
Managed multiple laboratory departments, administering the flow of samples, analysts, resources, and reports to satisfy State and Federal testing protocols.
Jason served the chemical testing needs of South Florida businesses and municipalities, working for Spectrum Laboratories as an environmental analytical chemist. He inherited the position from his predecessor who had just left to run the company’s Savannah location along with inheriting a long backlog of samples needing testing. After the first month, with the overdue sample list satisfied, Jason re-organized, re-wired, and re-plumbed the laboratory layout, making it more efficient for processing large volumes of samples correctly. During his first year with the lab, the lab was in a series of roughly connected warehouses, located on Dixie Highway in North Lauderdale.
The owners, Dr. Donald McCorquedale and Lyle Johnson, are career scientists. Both were amazing to learn from, unafraid to innovate and explore new types of tests other labs weren’t performing. Lyle’s ability to find amazing deals in the laboratory market filled the lab with a constant flow of new equipment, new capacities and new reagents. Don developed assays that allowed for pollution testing in sea water that was impossible before. Their amazing lab attracted amazing talent, people who were naturals at what they did, and capable of making the instruments sing and dance to a beautiful harmony of science and profit. This was a powerful place to grow skills no other place could afford, an opportunity to push the limits of knowledge and certainty. Lyle and Don maintained an environment of quality control and scientific integrity that their employees knew wasn’t present in competition. The atmosphere of excellence kept the fires burning late into the night on most nights, making sure quality was met before the day’s work was completed.
Fortunately, the lab had the luxury of maintaining good business, and grew from just a half dozen employees to around two dozen in the time Jason was employed. It went from being in a few hundred cramped feet of space to having a giant 22,000 square foot facility to stretch out in, alone. The lab went from concrete floors to raised-floor cleanrooms.
Developed first-of-its-kind, automatically generated, 1000+ page laboratory website in 1996 with the advent of the web, integrating in-house price list, EPA databases, and NIOSH chemical safety data.