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The origins of LabLogic Inc.
"When Dr. Ed Rapkin, a chemist, was drafted into the US army he was placed in a laboratory to study nutrition, where he operated a mass spectrometer. At that time, he began to help Lyle Packard with his very new Liquid Scintillation Counter which was on trial.
"Subsequently, Ed joined Packard Instrument Co. as its third employee and helped to develop their very successful 3003 range, which was sold all over the world. Eventually, Ed left to start Ansitron to make a rival LSC. He was sued by Packard for infringing several patents. Ed won all the cases except one but Ansitron was financially damaged by legal costs. He was offered a job in Paris by Intertechnique (IN), who knew him because Packard was the US agent for their Multi-Channel Analyser, the world’s first transistor MCA.
"Ed lived in Paris for three years and designed LSCs for IN. This included the SL40, the world’s first LSC with a computer. When I joined IN in 1970, it was Ed who gave me my training in nuclear counting. He returned to New Jersey where he started the Pilot Chemical Co. to synthesise rare chemicals but IN retained his services for four weeks a year.
"I found out that they brought him over to France for only a single week each year and asked if I could have him for the other three. In these three-week periods, I organised a lecture tour at universities around the country. Ed was a knowledgeable and humorous speaker and we broke into the market with this soft sell.
"IN had a manufacturing facility in the US but pulled out in the late 70s. Ed set up a company to service the existing Liquid Scintillation Counters already installed there, hence the odd name IN/US Service Corporation Inc.
"When I started LabLogic, I invited Ed to be a director. It was good to have someone to talk to about the business and I was selling his computer for quench correction, which gave us some street cred. Ed made excellent sales with our Ramona, our first radio-HPLC detector, but eventually went his own way and developed the Beta-RAM, which LabLogic switched to after problems with our existing suppliers.
"We thought the software that IN/US used for the Beta-RAM was poor so we developed our own, called RaChel. And so began a 26-year two-way co-operation between the companies until Ed retired and sold IN/US to LabLogic. In retirement, Ed retained a keen interest in the company and the people involved. He was involved in other bigger businesses but his heart was with LabLogic."
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