Making Technology Work

It’s been thirty years since we re-located from Southern California to Raleigh, North Carolina. When we made the transcontinental move back in 1993, I embarked on a Quality Control program to increase the reliability and accountability of Martek’s procurement, production, and customer service departments. Obviously, it’s been a success because we’re still in business and our customers are quite happy with the products and services we provide not only in the U.S., but all over the world. At th...

Perception versus Reality

Now that the COVID pandemic has tapered down, organizations have been opening up and returning to a semblance of normalcy. This has certainly been reflected in my travel schedule as requests for equipment evaluation and training rebound to pre-COVID levels.  There's been a lot of news about the turmoils in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries, some good, some not-so-good. However, regardless of the ups-and-downs these industries may currently be facing, the one commodity that every...

35 Years Young

I started working at Martek Instruments in the summer of 1986. My father, Oscar, the founder of Martek, asked that I take a six month sabbatical from my current job as an Insurance Underwriter to assist him in "squaring away" the Procurement Department. While I was not all that enthused about working at his manufacturing company, it was after all my Dad who was asking, so I said yes.  Those initial six months have turned into 35 years of amazing adventure and deep satisfaction. I never realiz...

Who Turned Out The Lights?

Lately, there's been a lot of news in regards to power generation reliability (or lack thereof) with major problems occurring in California and Texas. Part of the problem is a result of political policies rather than economic factors, and part of the problem is truly economical in nature. Coal plants are being phased out to make room for more efficient gas-fired plants and politically-correct renewable energy sources such as solar and wind-power (with nuclear power being the other clean energ...

There's Light At The End of The Tunnel

And no, it's not a train! While we have a long way to go, steps are slowly being taken across North America to return our society to a semblance of normalcy. Since Martek Instruments was always deemed an "essential business," we have not been as inconvenienced as other businesses. Still, travel to our clients has been curtailed mostly due their company policies.  However, we are still able to conduct analysis and evaluations via telephone and video. Thankfully, our manufacturing, repair, and ...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its no...

The Summer of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck's last novel, is the inspiration for today's blog post. The theme of Steinbeck's novel showcases the main character's struggles to maintain integrity and honesty within a corrupt, degenerative society whose external pressures contend against internal beliefs.  With the economic and political turmoil our society faces today, it can be tempting to cut corners, short-change customers, and/or reduce services in order to maintain or increase short-term ...

It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn

It's been a while since I've updated the Martek blog and now is as good a time as any to keep everyone up-to-date with Martek's doings. With the COVID-19 pandemic and societal lock-down dominating the headlines, not much has changed internally at Martek Instruments. Since we provide critical analytical instrumentation to the power generation market, we are considered an essential company and are operating under normal conditions though we take all of the precautionary steps everyone must take...

The Winds of Change

Lately, I've been traveling around North America visiting all types of power plants: Nuclear, coal-fired, and natural gas power plants. Nothing new in that as I've been doing this for the past 33 years. However, what is new is the number of chemists and I&C supervisors who have retired or will be retiring. People I've known and worked with for decades are no longer working at the plants and are being replaced with a much younger workforce.  There's nothing wrong with that; this is the nat...

Dog Days of Summer

It's been six months since I last posted a note and I apologize for not being more forthright; I've been quite busy traveling the country solving chemistry problems for our customers and learning the latest chemistry trends at the conferences I attended. In March, I presented a paper on Low-Level Conductivity Standards at the Measurement Science Conference in Anaheim, CA. It's been quite a while since I hob-knobbed with the Metrology industry and I found the opportunity to meet some very smar...
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