[Rhodes22-list] Interesting Week

[brad haslett]

Roger,

Here's an old saying from my profession:  "Better to
be lucky than good!"

Sounds like you're pretty good as well.  Good luck!

Brad


--- Roger Pihlaja <cen09402 at centurytel.net> wrote:

> Hi Everybody,
> 
> Well, I've had an interesting week.  I've been
> interviewing via the telephone & a-mail for a Group
> Leader position at Midwest Research Institute (MRI)
> in Kansas City, MO.  MRI is an independent,
> not-for-profit organization that performs contract
> research for business, industry, and government. 
> MRI was founded in 1944 and had facilities in Kansas
> City, MO; Cary, NC; Palm Bay, FL, and Washington
> D.C.  MRI also operates the National Renewable
> Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO under contract for
> the United States Dept. of Energy.  The MRI facility
> in Kansas City, MO employs about 350 people.
> 
> The position I'm interviewing for would be a Group
> Leader of a small multi-disciplinary group of about
> 10 scientists and engineers doing research into
> sampling and measurement of aerosols; in the
> environment, on the battlefield, and in industrial
> settings.  I will need to get my security
> classification reinstated for this position.  This
> research is mostly concentrating on the development
> of small, fast, reliable means to sample, detect,
> and measure for the presence of toxic biological and
> chemical agents.  The US Postal Service and US Army
> are major clients of this group.
> 
> I'm flying out to Kansas City, MO on Wednesday
> evening, interviewing during the day on Thursday,
> and flying home Thursday night.  Right now, it's not
> clear whether they would offer the position as a 6
> month renewable contract or as a permanent hire.
> 
> The way I got this interview trip is kind of
> interesting.  Last week Friday, I learned thru a
> headhunter that his client was MRI & they were
> interested in interviewing me on Monday via the
> telephone.  He e-mailed me a job description of the
> position.  Over the weekend, I researched MRI and
> specifically what they might be doing in the area of
> aerosol research.  I was able to figure out that MRI
> had recently spun off up a small entrepreneurial
> start-up company called Sceptor Industries, Inc.
> (Also headquartered in Kansas City, MO)  Sceptor
> Industries markets a concentrating air sampler under
> the tradename of SpinCon.  SpinCon air samplers are
> being installed on every mail sorting machine in the
> US Postal Service to sample and detect pathogens,
> like anthrax, being sent thru the mail.  The US Army
> uses SpinCon air samplers on the battlefield to
> detect chemical and biological threats.  Naturally,
> the publicly available information on the SpinCon
> air sampler doesn't reveal very much about how it
> works.  But, I took the marketing claims and reverse
> engineered my own design for an air sampler that
> could do the same job.  During my telephone
> interview on Monday, when asked about my expertise
> in air sampling, I first inquired about whether the
> group I would be heading up had anything to do with
> SpinCon and Sceptor Industries.  At first, there
> were several seconds of stunned silence on the other
> end of the line & then the interviewer said, "Yes,
> this group had done the proof-of-concept, scale-up,
> and manufacturing engineering to set Sceptor
> Industries up to produce SpinCon air samplers."  I
> told them that all I knew about the SpinCon air
> sampler was what I'd read on the web site.  I then
> described how I would go about developing an air
> sampler to do the same job.  I went on for about 10
> minutes & when I finished I asked, "Well how close
> was that to the real device?"  Again there was
> stunned silence for several seconds.  Finally, they
> told me that not only had I described the basic
> working principles of the present device, detailed
> several of the major problems they'd encountered
> during development & suggested reasonable solutions.
>  I had also touched on a couple of areas for
> improvement that the group was working on right now!
>  I just shrugged and said, "Well, sometimes you get
> lucky."  I thought the interview went pretty well. 
> This morning, I talked to the headhunter & he told
> me I'd made deep impression on the folks
> interviewing me.  Actually, the way he phrased it
> was, "You knew so much about a classified system
> that the guy was freaked out & they are going to be
> taking a much closer look at how the system is
> marketed in the future!"  Anyway, the next thing I
> knew, I was booked on a plane for Kansas City, MO!
> 
> Hey, I don't know if I'll actually get a job out of
> this &/or whether it'll be a 6 month contract or a
> permanent hire.  At the very least, it's encouraging
> to have someone interested in me.
> 
> Wish me luck!
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> 
>        
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