c & e n t a l k s w i t h . . .

W hat's in a name? Well, if the name is Perkin Elmer, quite a bit. Nobody appreciates this

quite as much as Robert J. Rosenthal, president of EG&G Instruments, which completed its $425 million ac­quisition of Perkin Elmer Analytical Instruments Division in late May. When EG&G bought the company from Perkin Elmer in March, it also bought ownership of a name widely known and beloved by millions of us­ers who got their first exposure to Per­kin Elmer instruments as early as high school. The old Perkin Elmer is now known as PE Corp.

Ah, but Perkin Elmer—there's a name that trips lightly off the tongue, and Rosenthal, 42, plans to capitalize on this famous brand—and its sales, service, and global support presence in 100 countries—in the newly named Perkin Elmer LLC. Rosenthal is also president of this entity.

Rosenthal tells C&EN, "I want Perkin Elmer to regain its position as the undisputed industry leader in analytical in­struments." But to get there, he's having to shake up the company. Last week, he announced that he's cutting 350 jobs, or 12% of Perkin Elmer LLC's global workforce, the first in a series of planned cost-cutting and other initiatives. "We must adjust our cost structure to make it best in class," he says.

Prior to its acquisition of Perkin Elmer Analytical Instru­ments, EG&G was not particularly well known for its analyti­cal instrumentation, Rosenthal says. The Wellesley, Mass.-based company, founded in 1947, was better known as a sup­plier of optoelectronic, mechanical, and electromechanical components, instruments, and services, primarily to the gov­ernment. Analytical instruments represented less than 20% of its $1.5 billion in revenues in 1998.

On the other hand, with more than 60 years of experience, Perkin Elmer LLC has developed hundreds of industry-standard analytical instruments, as well as advanced software for analyzing the increasingly complex data generated by such advanced instrumentation. Its systems are widely used in re­search laboratories, as well as in quality testing labs.

In fiscal 1998, Perkin Elmer Analytical Instruments generat­ed $578.3 million in sales; its acquisition by EG&G helps that company accelerate its shift from government to commercial technology markets. In addition to instruments, EG&G cur-

Robert Rosenthal rently has four divisions—life scienc­es, optoelectronics, engineered prod­ucts, and technical services. It is in the process of divesting technical servic­es, and when that's completed, Rosenthal notes, Perkin Elmer LLC will represent in excess of 40% of EG&G's total revenues—larger than any other division.

Rosenthal says the "integration of life sciences, optoelectronics, and in­struments is exciting." He talks about being "off to the races" with an enthusi­asm that would make one conclude he's been with either Perkin Elmer or EG&G for decades. Actually, he joined EG&G only in March 1999.

But he is an avowed enthusiast of instruments, a love he comes by natu­rally from his days as a student carry­ing out research using a wide variety of analytical instruments. He received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in

1978; an M.S. degree in physical chemistry from the State Uni­versity of New York, Buffalo, in 1979; and a Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from Emory University in 1982. He joined Nicolet Instrument Division as an applications scientist special­izing in vibrational spectroscopy in 1984.

He worked his way up in that company, later becoming di­rector of Nicolet's Spectroscopy Research Center. In 1986, he was named product manager for the company's line of re­search products and shortly thereafter assumed responsibili­ty for all of Nicolet's spectroscopy products.

In 1992, Nicolet was acquired by Thermo Instrument Sys­tems, part of Thermo Electron, Waltham, Mass., and Rosenthal was named president of Nicolet Instrument Divi­sion. He then moved over to Thermo Optek in 1995, where he served as president and CEO before joining EG&G.

Rosenthal says customers today want "answers, not just data" from .their instruments, and that's what Perkin Elmer LLC, which is based in Norwalk, Conn., will provide. He main­tains that Perkin Elmer's "innovation pipeline" is solid. "The analytical instrument industry is in a state of flux today," he says with understatement, "and the industry is seeking a lead­er. As an industry, we haven't provided products that have made customers excited enough to buy new instruments. We have to provide a better solution, a better mousetrap."

Madeleine Jacobs

b u s i n e s s

published annual review of the chemical industry in 1998. As the review points out, GDP for the entire subregion of Central and Eastern Europe fell 1.2% to an overall index level of 64.6, compared with 100 in 1989. In 1997, GDP for that subregion had shown a positive result for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Last year's decline was bad news for the chemical industry in the region. Looking

just at the southeastern countries spot­lighted in the economic study for which UNECE had detailed information, only Macedonia showed an increase in chemi­cal production in 1998 from 1997. De­clines from the 1997 levels were reported for Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania.

By comparison, there was some im­provement in chemical production in the Central European countries in 1998.

Chemical output was up 5.1% in the Czech Republic, up 3.5% in Hungary, and up 6.6% in Slovenia. But there were de­clines of 3.8% in Slovakia and of 3.3% in Poland. Poland's drop in chemical pro­duction was not surprising, according to the annual review: In 1997, chemical pro­duction had grown 11.2% over the previ­ous year, a rate seen as unsustainable.

Patricia Layman

3 2 JULY 19,1999 C&EN