About Me

Hi, my name is David, and I am a semi-retired senior citizen.  I have lived in Memphis, TN since 1970 (most of my life).  I went to college here graduating with a BS in Chemistry and further obtained two graduate degrees also in Memphis, one in science and one in business.  It is an interesting story of how I met and fell in love with my wife (a previous post) and with her raised three kids into adulthood.  Each of our children married and have provided us with wonderful grandchildren.  In 2019, just before the pandemic, we celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary.

I am an analytical chemist by education and training and except for an 18-month stent working in a toxicology laboratory at our local VA hospital, I have spent my entire 35-year professional career working in the pharmaceutical industry.  I learned early on that with drugs, it was much easier to analyze them BEFORE the patient took them than afterwards and it paid a lot better.  I have spent my entire career here in Memphis working for three different large pharmaceutical companies, interestingly all at the same campus and even in the same building (thanks to two different buyouts).  It was in 2017, when the Memphis site was closed and consolidated with another one in New Jersey, that I chose to take early retirement rather than relocating.

In my professional life, I have worked in both Quality Control (QC) and Research and Development (R&D) focusing on two main pharmaceutical topics: Analytical Methods Validation and Stability (with management responsibility thrown in for most of my career).  If you are interested in learning more about these areas, you will find several posts previously published. 

During my career, I have also been fortunate in being able to teach professional level courses on these two topics that I know so well.  In fact, it was really through serendipity that I actually began teaching, another interesting story you can pursue if interested.  Over the 25+ years that I have been teaching, I have gotten to travel the world extensively and many of these travels feature in some of my posts.

At this point in my life, I am enjoying my extra free time spending it with my wife, kids and grandkids and pursuing my interests.  I am a life-long car lover and model builder and many of these interests feature in my posts.  I also enjoy working with my hands and occasionally pursue interesting projects that I post about.  I read a lot and listen to jazz almost nonstop, my favorite genre of music.

I have three siblings with whom I am very close, and you can read more about some of our annual get togethers as well in what we call “SibSabs” (Sibling Sabbaticals)

Ironically, my brother also worked in the pharmaceutical industry for much of his career and sometimes we even worked for the same companies.  With science as a common interest along with enjoying craft beers, we have grown beyond the days of growing up when we use to fight with each other and are much closer.  We also like to travel together, just the two of us to enjoy our common interests and you can read about these in what we call “BroGos” (Brothers Going places together).