ManningWood is a new company I started at the end of 2006 with a focus on technical consulting in the area of analytical chemistry with an emphasis on rubber, plastics, and pharmaceutical applications. At that time I was transitioning from being the Technical Director at Hospira Inc. (formerly Abbott Laboratories) in Ashland, Ohio to going to Kharkiv, Ukraine as a Fulbright scholar to conducting research. (see About Fulbright for more details below)
About myself
You can read about my academic and industrial experience on my website (www.manningwood.com) but let me tell you more about myself. I have always had a passion about doing chemistry from the time I first got a home chemistry set and my first chemistry class in high school. I pursued chemistry in college majoring in it at Houghton. I did a National Science Foundation research project the summer of my sophomore year at Syracuse University and graduated with honors in chemistry from Houghton. I was accepted into a PhD program in chemistry at Case Western Reserve University. I began my graduate studies but they were interupted with my obligation to serve in the US military. I served for over 3 years much of it in Berlin, Germnay in the United States Army Security Agency Field Station. I was trained as a German linguist in Monterey, California in a 6 month intensive German course.
Returning to Case after fulfilling my military obligation I pursued the PhD degree working with phosphorus NMR and developing analytical methodology for the determination of ppm levels of phosphorus compounds in various environmental applications.
Upon graduation from Case I was offered a position as a Senior Research Chemist at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co in the Research Division.
Goodyear
I worked from 15 years for Goodyear in the research area. My focus was on analytical method development based on HPLC. I also developed methods for GC and wet chemistry. During my career at Goodyear I was promoted to Section Head of the analytical methods development group and had the opportunity to manage several other analytical technologies in addition to chromatography i.e. GC-MS, FT-IR, XRD, and NMR. It was a time of expanding my knowledge of analytical capabilities, how to manage technical people, and how to solve real industrial technical problems. I resigned from my position at Goodyear and moved to Delaware for a few months as the Group Leader at ICI Americas Specialty Chemical Division. I left ICI to accept a position at Abbott Laboratories as a Senior Analytical Chemist in the Quality group.
Abbott Laboratories
The position I accepted at Abbott was in a small manufacturing plant in Ashland, Ohio that was involved in making various components for medical and hospital products. The plant was doing rubber molding, plastic injection molding, blow molding, PVC IVC tubing extrusion, liquid injection molding of silicone rubber, and precision latex dipping. As the Senior Analytical Chemist I was involved in plant troubleshooting to assist in resolving technical manufacturing issues. This was a very different world than the R&D world that I was most familiar with. The problems I addressed needed immediate answers because in manufacturing time truly is money.
During my career at Abbott I was transferred to the R&D department and initially was the Manager of Rubber Technology and then the Technical Director where I oversaw the development of new products as well as provided technical support to the plant. I learned not only about manufacturing of medical rubber and plastic components, i.e. cGMP and FDA requirement, but I also met regularly with the Abbott R&D groups in Chicago and learned about new drug and medical devices. This is when I developed the in-house course on Pharmaceutical Rubber Chemistry to educate the pharmacists and analytical drug chemists about rubber formulations, chemistry, and vulcanization processes. Abbott Laboratories spunoff its Hospital Products Division in May 2004 which became Hospira Inc. In February 2006 Hospira announced that the Ashland plant would be closing in 18 months. At that time I had applied for a Fulbrigth scholarship to do research in Ukraine and I was accepted in May 2006.
About Fulbright
My wife and I had traveled to Kharkiv, Ukraine every year from 2002 thru 2005 doing humanitarian work and some teaching. In 2002 I worked at the Children's Infectious Disease hospital assisting in setting up an ultrasound diagnostic machine to assist the doctors in treating the children. In 2004 and 2005 we were involved with teaching business and life principles to Ukrainian university students at the Center of Leadership Development.
I was teaching about adapting to change based on the book, Who Moved My Cheese. During the 2004 visit I was asked to speak at the Department of Chemistry at the National University in Kharkiv and made some contacts at the Institute for Single Crystals. In 2005 I suggested to one of my contacts, Dr. Nikolay Gorobets, from the Institute the possibility of collaborating on a Fulbright program and spending several months in Kharkiv.
After being awarded the Fulbright in May 2006, my wife and I moved to Ukraine in January 2007 and I worked at the Institute for Single Crystals for 5 months. (www.isc.kharkov.com).
Our research project involved reacting a series of iminocoumarines with various R groups in para position on the aromatic ring with acetic anhydride. The syntheses were conducted in minutes using a microwave reaction - Biotage. My role was to assist with the characterization of these reaction mixtures using HPLC and NMR and to determine the reaction kinetics and the role of hydrogen bonding in the reactions.
A technical paper is being written and will be submitted for publication in 2007. In addition to conducting this research I was also involved in teaching Who Moved My Cheese and other cultural exchanges at the Kharkiv Pharmaceutical Science University
, the Kharkiv Economic University, the Kharkiv Polytechnical University, and Window on America library at the Kharkiv National University. I also participate in a World Bank forum on the future of Ukraine.
World Bank forum at the Polytechnical University -signing the guest book at the newly dedicated library
World Bank forum with University students dressed in traditional Ukrainian folk costumes
Teaching Who Moved My Cheese at the Polytechnical University
