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Independent Testing Laboratory
Independent Testing Laboratory
The origins of The Independent Testing Laboratory date to 1982 when Earl Warrick, interim dean of the College of Science, Engineering & Technology, was assisted by The Dow Chemical Company. The lab’s first piece of equipment, an Instron tensile-testing machine, was still in use in 2013.12 Warrick’s successor, Thomas Kullgren, fostered the lab’s early development. Bruce Hart began as manager of the lab in 1983. Though included under the umbrella of SVSU’s Center for Business & Economic Development, the lab supports itself through grants and client fees. In 2013, the lab could count more than 120 customers, including The Dow Chemical Company, Dow Corning Corporation, General Motors Corporation, Michigan Sugar Company, Walbro, Gougeon Brothers and a sizeable number of smaller companies, among them multiple start-ups. Helping smaller operations was a primary mission of the lab.13
The lab’s independent status within the university appealed to clients. Since the lab does not follow the academic calendar, it is available year round to advance SVSU’s mission of community service.
Though typically quiet about its work, the lab has occasionally saved clients, both public and private, from significant inconvenience and expense. There was the time, for example, in the 1990s when a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality test of air pollution in Bay County recorded an abnormally high level of airborne contaminants. It turned out that on the day the testing showed a spike in pollution, a farmer was plowing a field near the test site and strong winds delivered clouds of dust to the site. The results threatened Bay County with reclassification and might have meant that the EPA would not have allowed any industrial expansion in the county. Bay County made a deal with the Michigan DEQ: The SVSU
The Independent Testing Laboratory, under the direction of Bruce Hart (left), is available year-round to service clients.
