User:Ashlandchemist

''Username note: While I worked for Ashland Inc. for 15 years and I am proud of my former company, I have not, and will not, engage in company promotion in keeping with Wikipedia username policy. kf ''

Hello fellow Wikipedia user! My name is Ken Forbes and I'm an analytical chemist and quality assurance laboratory manager for Nexeo Solutions in Fairfield, CA. While growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a 1960s Gilbert chemistry set discovered in the basement of my home changed my life forever. It put me on a path where the wonder and beauty of nature could be seen first-hand and that knowledge flourished in me and fostered a respect for life and our physical universe..... but best of all, it set a career in motion.

I managed the Quality Assurance Laboratory for Ashland Inc. in Northern California from 1996 to 2011. Ashland sold the chemical distribution business to TPG Capital in 2011 and my company was renamed Nexeo Solutions, LLC. Prior to that I managed an air pollution and atmospheric testing laboratory for The Almega Corporation in Los Angeles (Signal Hill-Long Beach) for 5 years; this work primarily involved testing air emissions, and the air itself, in and around petroleum refineries and heavy industries in the L.A. Basin and western United States.

I began my exploration of chemistry following a cell biology-physiology degree from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1984 and graduate certification in clinical laboratory technology at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center in Orange, CA. I also conducted research in mycology (Coccidioides immitis) at the V.A. Medical Center in Long Beach until 1990, using HPLC-UV and Diode array, ELISA, RIA, immuno-labeling and other methods for antigen detection of Valley Fever disease.

My employer, Nexeo Solutions, is a leading distributor (#2 in the United States in 2011) of plastics, resins and chemicals in North America. Companies such as Du Pont, BASF, Shell Chemicals and Dow Chemical make the chemicals we sell, but unless you buy by the ton in railcar quantity, you will probably get bulk chemicals from Nexeo Solutions or other major distributors. The Northern California Nexeo plant and my Quality Assurance Laboratory serve customers throughout western North America and the Far East. We distribute up to 100 million pounds + annually.... from 7000 gallon tanker loads to 1 gallon cans full.

I work in Fairfield, CA (San Francisco area) and I am a active member of the American Chemical Society (http://www.chemistry.org). I live in Woodland, CA with my wife Lori and daughter Stephanie. I enjoy live recordings of Grateful Dead via www.archive.org, collect vintage chemistry sets, am addicted to AM talk radio and own a partially-restored, dark-green, metallic-flake, 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham.

Thanks for reading.....and be bold, but accurate, in your Wikipedia contributions.

Ken Forbes last updated October 20, 2011