SCHB wins two ChemLuminary Awards in Indianapolis

Written for Small Chem Biz Spring 2014 Issue
By: Jennifer Maclachlan, Public Relations Chair, SCHB

There was a tie for Outstanding Collaboration Between a Local Section and Division at the 15th Annual ChemLuminary Awards ceremony at the ACS Fall National Meeting in Indianapolis on September 10, 2013. It was truly a win-win situation for the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses who claimed both awards from the Divisional Activities Committee side: one for partnering with the ACS Georgia Local Section and the the second for partnering with the Northeastern Local Section.

About the award winning activity: ACS-GLS and SCHB
The Chemical Businesses Group of the ACS Georgia Local Section organized an entrepreneurial networking event that featured a Showcase of 18 small chemical businesses within their local section on November 9, 2012, hosted by Kennesaw State University, in cooperation with, the ACS Georgia Local Section Academia/Industry Forum. According to Deanna Morrow Hall, one of the organizers,  this event was an "enormous opportunity to raise the visibility of the area’s chemical businesses". The Academia/Industry Forum included talks on research collaborations between universities and industry focusing on patenting inventions, developing a commercial product, and government regulations. Innovative Project Grant (IPG) funding was used for the Local Chemical Businesses Showcase with the goal of developing membership by creating a networking venue for current and prospective members in the chemical enterprise via the small chemical business Showcase. This award was one of six that the ACS-Georgia Local Section won at the 2013 Chemluminary awards.

Photo credit: Peter Cutts Photography
L to R:
Sharon Vercellotti, Stan Seelig, Lynn Sullivan, Mitchell Bruce, Joe Sabol, Mike Morello, Mukund Chorghade and Tom Barton

About the award winning activity: NESACS and SCHB
The Northeastern Local section in cooperation with the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses and Nova Biomedical with financial support from the NESACS Government Relations Committee, organized a day long symposium on October 11, 2012 titled: Starting and Financing a Small Chemical Business. The program included a summary of the ACS Entrepreneurial Initiative, programs available from the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, the start-up of Nova Biomedical in the 1970s, conventional  and SBA financing. Other subjects included advantages of executive education for technical/scientific entrepreneurs, non dilutive and dilutive equity funding and enlightening talks on the advantages of tweeting and utilizing other social media platforms for marketing a small chemical business. True Stories of Chemical Entrepreneurs, an SCHB flagship symposium at ACS National and Regional Meetings, debuted at this local section symposium and featured four NESACS members and their fascinating true stories ranging from working with Senators Kennedy and Dole to get government R&D funding for small businesses in the early 1980s to the start-up of a contract drug discovery company in the Boston area. The evening portion of the event was the NESACS Monthly Meeting honoring the 50, 60 and 70 year ACS members. 

Photo credit: Peter Cutts Photography
L to R:
Mike Morello, Sharon Vercellotti, Jennifer Maclachlan, Joe Sabol, Stan Seelig, Mukund Chorghade, Mitchell Bruce, Jack Driscoll and Tom Barton.

Stay tuned: On April 9, 2014, Nova Biomedical is hosting the ACS Entrepreneurial Resource Center Showcase East business pitching competition in cooperation with the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses and the Northeastern Local Section. If you wish to attend this event, contact Jennifer Maclachlan at pr@acs-schb.org. 

Partner with the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses: Contact Mukund Chorghade at chair@acs-schb.org to partner with us on entrepreneurial local section events and/or to collaborate with us on symposia at National or Regional Meetings. 

Discover the Entrepreneurial Resources Available to Members of the ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses

  SCHB Spring 2014 Newsletter uploaded by Jennifer Maclachlan

Small Chemical Business Symposium Report at Nova 10/11/12

Award-winning symposium: Starting and Financing a Small Chemical Business

Photo by M.Z. Hoffman L to R: M. Morello, S. Vercellotti, J. Maclachlan, J. Sabol, S.Seelig, M. Chorghade, M. Bruce, J. Driscoll, T. Barton

This award winning symposium earned a ChemLuminary award at the 15th Annual Awards Ceremony September 10, 2013 in Indianapolis, IN  for Outstanding Collaboration between a Local Section and a Division: Northeastern Local Section and the Division of Small Chemical Businesses

Guest blog post by Jack Driscoll, PR Chair NESACS

Waltham, MA, Oct.11,2012- When Nova Biomedical Corp. in Waltham, MA agreed to host the 926^th meeting of the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS), we asked whether we could add an afternoon symposium to the venue and received an enthusiastic “yes”.  Our section, NESACS, is the largest of the 187 sections of the ACS with 7,500 members mostly in the greater Boston area. Most people are surprised to hear that.  The symposium program is described here.

 The program included a summary of the ACS programs for Entrepreneurs, programs available from MA Small Business Development Center, the startup of Nova in the nineteen seventies, conventional  and

SBA financing. Other subjects included advantages of executive education for Tech entrepreneurs, non dilutive and dilutive equity funding and an enlightening talk on the advantages of tweeting and other social media for marketing your businesses. Madeleine Jacobs, Executive Director & CEO of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific organization with 164,000 members talked about jobs and ACS programs for entrepreneurs that is described at http://www.acs.org/ei. We had a number of our NESACS  members describe “True Stories of Chemical Entrepreneurs”. The first described how he worked with Senators Kennedy and Dole to get government R&D funding for small businesses in the early 80’s. This became the NSF SBIR programs. Another, of the Movie “21” fame (MIT entrepreneurs develop a system to predict the cards in blackjack) and a serial entrepreneur describes four of her new ventures in biofuels, drug discovery etc.  The last true story was about of the start up of a contract drug discovery company. 

We had very lively discussions on financing small companies and how the Nova start up (no venture capital just bank financing) in the 1970’s could not be duplicated today.

We had 50 participants at this meeting with 30% NESACS members, 30% from Universities,  30% small business owners and a number of  patent attorneys. We also had Vivian Walworth, an entrepreneur, attend the seminar. On Thursday evening she received an award for being a 70 year member of the ACS. She is still very active in NESACS activities.

This symposium was organized by Dr. Mukund Chorgade, President,   Chorgade Enterprises  and immediate past chair of the Small Chemical Business Div. of the ACS, and Dr. Jack Driscoll, President, PID Analyzers, LLC, and Public Relations Chair of NESACS.

The symposium was sponsored by NESACS, the NESACS Government Relations Group,  the Small Chemical Business  Division of the ACS  and Nova Biomedical. 

Prepared by

Dr. Jack Driscoll,

Public Relations Chair of NESACS