The Beckman Institute opened in 1989 with some group secretaries, a few staff members in the business office and in operations, and a handful of other full and part-time workers toiling in the laboratories and elsewhere. Twenty years later more than 100 full-time staff members provide critical support services to more than 600 researchers doing leading-edge science at Beckman.

Three of those staff members who started working at Beckman in the Institute’s first year of operation are still with us today. Who has been here the longest? That honor goes to research group secretary Sharon Collins, who preceded all of the professors she eventually worked for over the years. Collins moved into room 2027 in March of 1989 and can still be found there today. She serves as secretary for research groups that include two professors, Thomas Huang and Narendra Ahuja, that she has worked with from the beginning.

Chris Roberts, another staff person who was here that first year, had the honor of driving Arnold and Pat Beckman to Arnold’s boyhood home in Cullom during our benefactor’s last visit to the University. Research coordinator Kathy Bates used to talk to the Beckmans during their campus visits before the Institute was built; she then started out here as a secretary in the business office in 1989.

Five other current staff members have more than 15 or more years of service at the Beckman Institute while 14 others have been here 10 years or more. We salute the entire staff at Beckman during this, our 20th Anniversary Year, especially those who have given so many years of service to the Beckman Institute.

Click on the names in the left column to see staff members' reflections.