Symposium in honor of Dr. Jack Driscoll, 2019 American Chemical Society Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success recipient

Time: 1pm-4:30pm Reception immediately following the program

Award Address (Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success sponsored by the Kathryn C. Hach Award Fund)

John N. Driscoll, pidguy@aol.com, Jennifer L. Maclachlan, pidgirl@gmail.com. PID

Analyzers, LLC, Centerville, Massachusetts, United States

The 2019 Kathryn C. Hach awardee, Dr. Jack Driscoll will share his experience with

photoionization, which began in 1967 with a program on a NASA project, "A

Photoionization Mass Spectrometer for Contaminant Gases in Space Cabin

Atmospheres”. The project was successful but was not renewed. The technique was

very interesting to Driscoll and he felt that it had excellent potential as an analytical tool.

The work continued a number of years later when he started HNU Systems to develop

photoionization based analyzers for industrial hygiene and gas chromatography

markets. His company sold more than 50,000 of these analyzers. Recently Driscoll

discovered that the PID could be used with hydride generation coupled to GC/PID to

detect ppb levels of many heavy metals in food, water, juices, etc. The technique was

applied to detection of ppt levels of Hg using a gold amalgam to concentrate samples

specifically for Hg. The PID remains as a very sensitive technique for the analysis on

VOC’s and heavy metals and he will discuss the results and analytical impacts of these

measurements.

Jennifer L. Maclachlan, pidgirl@gmail.com. PID Analyzers, LLC, Centerville,

Massachusetts, United States

Dr. Jack Driscoll is the 2019 Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success

awardee and his daughter and business partner, Jennifer Maclachlan, will share

anecdotes of growing up Driscoll: With a father who pioneered the life saving hand-held

photoionization detector in the 1970's, acquired numerous analytical instrumentation

companies including European businesses, started and remains on the board of

directors of the world's largest privately-held in-vitro diagnostics company, a passionate

advocate for education, an avid science fiction fan and a beloved volunteer to the

Northeastern Local Section of the American Chemical Society.

Gregory A. Cutter, gcutter@odu.edu. Old Dominion Univ, Norfolk, Virginia, United

States

Chemical oceanography studies the chemistry of the planet’s oceans in relation to their

physics (circulation), geology (sources of materials), and biology. These studies include

organic, inorganic, and physical chemistry aspects. However, seawater is a high ionic

strength medium whose constituents besides the major ions that make up salinity, are

at micro- to femptomolar concentrations. This imposes substantial analytical problems.

In addition to low concentrations, many constituents are volatile (e.g., dimethyl sulfide)

or unstable with storage (e.g, FeII), necessitating determinations at sea – consider your

lab moving constantly in 3 dimensions. The photoionization detector coupled primarily

with gas chromatography is ideally suited for chemical oceanography due to its small

size, limited need for specialized compressed gases, simple and robust construction,

and extremely low detection limits for a variety of inorganic and organic molecules. This

talk will illustrate these features using the shipboard determinations of hydrogen sulfide

and metalloid chemical speciation as examples.

John N. Driscoll, pidguy@aol.com, Jennifer L. Maclachlan, pidgirl@gmail.com. PID

Analyzers, LLC, Centerville, Massachusetts, United States

The Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR) which sets aside 1.7% of 12

Government Agencies R&D budget for small businesses was initiated by the work of Dr.

Arthur Obermayer and Senator Kennedy. Obermayer’s Company, Moleculon, received

the first SBIR Grant from the NSF in 1982 for $25,000. Obermayer worked with Bush

and Dole to ensure that the patent rights went to the Company that developed the

product and not to the government. Obermayer continued to work with Kennedy and

other congressmen to expand this program to other agencies and their R&D budgets. In

2018, the SBIR/STTR program budget was $2.3 billion dollars. The total amount spent

of SBIR/STTR was $50 billion dollars. The impact that this has had on small chemical 

businesses and the technology workforce will be addressed.