Continuity

It's been a while since I last posted an article as I've been helping customers all over the U.S. resolve issues regarding their water chemistry and analysis. Which brings me to my current topic: Continuity. But first, some history.

I joined Martek in 1986 at the behest of its founder, Oscar, who happens to be my father. At the time, I was 18 months out of the Marine Corps working as an underwriter for an insurance company. My father, wishing to share the success of Martek with at least one of his children, asked that I join him to re-organize Martek's Procurement and Inventory systems. Though somewhat reluctant to join "The Firm" since I thoroughly enjoyed insurance, I eventually agreed to take a six month sabbatical from my insurance career to assist my father. That initial six months has turned into a 28 year (and counting) love affair with manufacturing.

For over 48 years, Martek has been providing analytical solutions to peoples' water quality problems and I have had the privilege of being there a majority of that time. Over the years, I have met some amazing engineers, chemists, technicians, and consultants. I've learned a lot about water chemistry, metallurgy, electronics, software, machining, sheet metal, plastics and yes, procurement and inventory management.

A lot of the people I met in the 1980's have either retired or, sad to say, are no longer with us. As such, their knowledge and experience have left us as well. People with practical experience, both end-users and vendors, are now in short supply. And this is where continuity comes in.

Having experience and being able to provide historical perspective is an invaluable asset when diagnosing a problem. The average Martek employee has over 20 years of experience and can assist customers with products spanning over 30 years of production. This kind of continuity saves our customers (especially the nuclear guys) hundreds of thousands of dollars by not having to constantly up-grade their equipment and procedures. And since most of our products follow a similar design pattern, transitioning from one system to another is simple and easy if the day ever comes when they choose to upgrade.

My adage has always been, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If current instrumentation or procedures are working for you, fine (especially if it’s our stuff!). If not, don’t accept mediocrity; get help and do something about it. And call us.