Category Archives: Pickering employees

Team Time in ‘21

By Christopher Nguyen and Gloria Garcia

Now that we have good COVID-19 vaccination rates among employees at Pickering Labs and less restrictions from the county, we finally got together as a team after over a year of essential work, social distancing, and boxed lunches.  Our breakroom has been closed for months too, so everyone has been eating in their cars or at their desks.  Finally, last week was our first chance to get together as a whole team in the sunshine and fresh air (to enjoy some… boxed lunch LOL). 

Since his hire back in November, Kevin McKeown our new Sales Manager has been remotely working from his home on the East Coast.  Kevin couldn’t pass up a chance to hit California for a week at his earliest opportunity, so we threw him a little [belated] welcome luncheon while he was here. 

Pickering Lunch - group photo 1

Kevin pictured above, meeting Chris and seeing David for the first time since March 2020 at Pittcon.  We wonder… is it any different having lunch with Jim Murphy now that he’s your boss, Kevin?  😉

This was also the perfect opportunity for Kevin and Chris, both pandemic hires, to meet Judy Pickering as well!  She came onsite for lunch and is shown below chatting with Saji, Rebecca and Maria.  Both Gloria and Judy share a love of sunflowers, so we enjoyed some beautiful centerpieces for lunch!

Pickering Lunch - group photo 2

Earlier in the week, Christopher was also finally able to take his Production Team out for a much-deserved lunch!  (Nice of them to invite Kevin along to enjoy good food and even better company.) 

Pickering Lunch - group photo 3

Pictured here: Kevin, Skip, Anita, Severo, Gabriela, Jay, Sareeta, Craig, Ed and Chris.  Good looking crew!

Happy Anniversary! Or Rather, Work-a-versary!

By Rebecca Smith and Rudy Suez

The world keeps turning, turning, turning… and time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future…  With that thought in mind, we want to acknowledge two of our employees that have been a part of our journey for quite some time and to celebrate a couple recently of joined folks as they complete their first full year!

As some of you may know, Pickering Laboratories has a group of very tenured employees – many have been with the organization for over 15, 20 and even 25-plus years.  So, we would like to formally introduce and fête two longstanding members of our staff: Gabriela Ron and Anita Gribaldo

Gabriela RonFirst up, Gabriela is a member of our production team and back in May she celebrated her 20th year with Pickering Laboratories!  (Yep… you read that right… 20 years!)  Gabriela is our resident expert when it comes to manufacturing Trione reagent, so all of our Amino Acids customers have benefited from her careful attention and strong work ethic.  Fun fact, Gabriela was the very first employee whose work was moved to the “new” laboratory way back in 1999!  While we are postponing until post-pandemic throwing her a right proper bash, we want to take a minute and offer up a socially-distanced cheers to Gabriela for 20 years of service!

Anita GribaldoNext month, we will celebrate with Anita, our packaging specialist, as she reaches her 20-year mark here at Pickering Laboratories as well!  Anita’s first day at Pickering was the day before Halloween back in 2000, which must have been pretty spooky considering she moved to the U.S. from Poland in May of the same year and had NO IDEA about Halloween!  Anita describes her total confusion when she showed up to work on her second day only to be confronted by a fully dressed witch at the door!  These days, she loves Halloween and the tradition of handing out candy to neighborhood kids.

So, we wanted to give a huge shout out to Gabriela and Anita; these outstanding women show up day-in and day-out with amazing attitudes and add value to both our products and our organization as a whole.  Their proven track records of hard work and attention to detail are apparent every time you receive your order – they both have had their hands on your product one way or another, whether it is in the production of a specific formulation or after, in final packaging.   They both take immense pride in providing quality products for our customers, every single time an order goes out our door.  So please, help us again in congratulating these outstanding employees for their service and quality of work.  

Yuliana LopezPickering Laboratories also wants to celebrate with two of our newest employees who have just hit their 1-year mark!  Yuliana Lopez is one of our Customer Service Representatives; we’re sure that many of you have interacted with Yuliana and seen first-hand her dedication to our customers.  Yuliana loves to build relationships and she’s very customer-centric.  Her ability to multitask is illustrated by her management of international and domestic orders simultaneously, while working with freight forwarders and coordinating with internal Pickering departments!  Yuliana is the front line for making sure all of our products are available on time and as promised for our customers.  She takes pride in doing right by our customers daily, and Yuliana truly wears so many different hats already in her first year!  We are extremely happy to have her as part of the Pickering family and look forward to see her continued growth within the organization!
   

Rudy SuezRudy Suez, our Customer Service Manager, is also hitting his 1-year anniversary!  Rudy has been instrumental in bringing this new management position from planning to reality, and in his first year he’s already become an integral part of our leadership team.  Always ready with a warm smile and a cold beer, Rudy works with Yuliana and Gloria to provide customers with accurate orders and rapid service.  He’s tackled new challenges in extending beyond his sales and customer service experience too, by tackling Accounts Receivable (AR) management as well – and knocking it out of the park!  2020 has been a big year for Rudy, since he’s learning to balance his life as a new dad with his role here at Pickering.  Seems like we’re more likely to catch him with a hot coffee than a cold beer these days – quite the change from Friday afternoons in 2019!  So, congratulations to Rudy on his work-a-versary and we hope he keeps loving every minute of fatherhood!

Virtual cheers to all of these employees and many thanks for their contributions to our mutual success!  The future is looking bright at Pickering Laboratories!

Meet Our New Production Manager!

By Rebecca Smith

It is my great pleasure to introduce Christopher Nguyen, our new Production Manager, via newsletter to all of our customers, vendors and distributors!  When the pandemic quarantine finally lifts and life resumes some semblance of normalcy, we hope to have the chance for some of you to get better acquainted with Christopher in person, perhaps at Pittcon… But in the meantime, this will have to do!

Christopher joined the team at the beginning of June and has quickly come up to speed here at Pickering Laboratories.  Formerly, he managed a team of Inventory Control Specialists, so Christopher’s timing was impeccable as he arrived at Pickering with exactly 30 days to onboard before leading our annual physical inventory!  Unlike myself, Christopher loves the art of inventory control, so he was an excellent fit for the task and really used the time to familiarize himself with both our products and our staff. 

Coming from Caliva, there was some overlap between his previous role and our business, but Christopher definitely had a pretty steep learning curve when it came to supporting our customers!  Good thing he’s able to connect really well with the staff and lean on them – as you know, we’re lucky to have a long-tenured production team who completely rock!  Since we wrapped inventory up this summer, Christopher has been diving deep with Anita in packaging and Craig and Skip in the planning and procurement side of the business.  He’s “all about supply chains,” which fits in perfectly with Pickering’s COVID-19 goal to be the strongest link for each of our customers to rely on during this challenging year. 

In his free time (that “life” part of the work-life balance Pickering’s so proud of!), Christopher is a competitive bodybuilder!  He is looking forward to his next competition, which was postponed from 2020 into 2021 due to the pandemic.  He’s also interested in MMA, dogs and cars.  But when you ask Christopher about his personal life, he’s super focused on his family.  Such a great fit for our culture!

Christopher Nguyen and baby
Christopher Nguyen and baby

Welcome, Christopher!  We’re looking forward to your many years of service to come… and to watching your adorable son grow up!