Chromatography Forum of Delaware Valley Dal Nogare Award

Chromatography Forum of Delaware Valley Dal Nogare Award

John DolanDr. John W. Dolan was the proud recipient of the Dal Nogare Award at Pittcon 2007, adding another bright note to his illustrious career. Dr. Dolan is best known for his “LC Troubleshooting” column right here at LCGC for the past 20 years, for which he has written over 250 installments. He is also a member of LCGC’s editorial advisory board.

Outside of LCGC, Dr. Dolan is vice president of BASi Northwest Laboratory, in McMinnville, Oregon, and a principal instructor for LC Resources, in Walnut Creek, California. He is also co-author of the books Troubleshooting LC Systems and High Performance Gradient Elution. Dr. Dolan received his PhD from the University of California, Davis. His postdoctoral work was completed at Northeastern University, and shortly thereafter developed clinical HPLC technology at Technicon Instruments Corporation.

After he accepted his award, Dr. Dolan gave a presentation on the extraordinarily positive effect that the DryLab software, which he helped to develop and write, has had on the chromatography industry. He started off by quoting the book Built to Last to explain his philosophy on creating an enormously popular product, “People – Products – Profit,” in that order. “That’s what separates a good company from a great company,” Dolan said.

“What I’d like to talk about today is the first two, because I haven’t figured out the last one,” he joked.

Dr. Dolan went on to explain the value of the DryLab software in today’s chromatography world, and the importance of utilizing optimal equipment in the laboratory, stating, “If you don’t keep careful control of your experiments, you’re not going to get very good results.”

Other speakers at the symposium included Dr. Lloyd Snyder, co-founder of LC Resources and a former Dal Nogare award winner, professor Dan Marchand, from the Chemistry Department at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Peter Carr from the University of Minnesota, and Mike Swartz, of Waters Corporation in Milford MA.

The Dal Nogare award was established in honor of Stephen Dal Nogare who died in 1968 after serving 6 months as president of the Chromatography Forum of Delaware Valley. The recipient is chosen on the basis of his or her contributions to the understanding of the chromatographic process. The award is presented annually at Pittcon.