What are your primary job responsibilities?

I’m a synthetic organic chemist in the Synthetic Technologies group within the Discovery Chemistry organization. I work primarily on route development and scale ups for advanced studies and act as a liaison between medicinal chemists and process chemists.

What is a typical work day-in-your-life like?

I spend about 60% of my time at the hood and 40% managing contract research organizations?

How did you find your first job?

Eli Lilly on campus interview at U of M

What level of education (Bachelor's, Masters, PhD, etc.) is required to do your job? 

Nowadays at least a MS, but preferably PhD

What is your work schedule like? Do you ever work weekends or nights?

I work 9-10 hr days (by choice!) and come in on weekends to check on experiments, maybe 3-4 times a year. My job does not require weekend or evening work.

Do you travel for work? If so, in what capacity, and how often?

Occasionally for conferences or visiting other Lilly sites.

What is your work environment like? Do you work mostly with a team or mostly independently? Do you stand, sit, or move most of the day?

Teamwork is absolutely essential. We live and die as a team and depend on each other a great deal. The nature of the job requires me to be on my feet most of the day. Need comfy shoes!

What do you like most about your job?

I work with very smart people and get to solve complex chemistry problems and in the process make medicines that make life better for millions of people. Most importantly, I learn something new every single day!

What are some tools or skills that you can't live without? These can be technologies, soft skills, hardware, or anything else you can think of.

Listening and respecting diverging opinions.

What skills, traits, talents do you have that you think make you a good fit for your job?

Tenacity! Our job is 80% failure. One must be very tenacious and stubborn to succeed.

What's your best productivity trick?

Able to say “no”. Admittedly, this is difficult to do early in one’s career, but one has to be able to prioritize work and there are only so many hours in the day to efficiently accomplish our tasks. So, recognizing your limits and capabilities and being able to say “no” when those limits have been reached is important.

Do you have any habits that are essential to your professional success that you wish
you started earlier?

Work-life balance. Again, this may be difficult to achieve early in our careers as we’re trying to prove our “worth and value” to our employers. I finally learned to accomplish this by working when I’m at work and disconnecting when I’m at home. This doesn’t happen 100% of the time, and that is OK. It’s just a general framework to keep in mind.

What's the best career advice you've ever received? What career advice would you give to someone starting out in your field? 

Advice received: “keep your head down and do your job”. This is good advice to some degree. It is important at times to speak up when it’s necessary but recognize when that time is. This knowledge and wisdom will take a while to gain and hone, but it will come for most of us. My advice:

1. Listen! Actively LISTEN!
2. Keep an open mind to opportunities that are presented to you throughout your career, regardless of how little interest you think you may have in them; you may surprise yourself in what you find in that opportunity.
3. Build a network.

Something a bit more philosophical that I do on semi-regular basis. I ask myself three questions:

1. Do I enjoy my job?
2. Am I treated with respect?
3. Am I properly compensated for the work that I do?

The day that the answer to any of these questions is “no”, is the day that I will have to make a change, whether that’s a new job or a new field or retirement. Those are my questions; yours may be different, but it’s a good idea to have regular check-ins with yourself and about your professional needs and desires. 

How do you build community in your career field? Are you part of any professional organizations? 

Member of ACS. Attend conferences. Network with colleagues who are not in my field.

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at the University of Minnesota?

Organizing the National Chemistry Day activities in 1989