Gary Fourman is one of the instructors for the MS in Biotechnology Innovation and Regulatory Science program.
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Recently I decided to apply the mantra “Lead Boldly” to myself. Without an appointment, I dropped in and introduced myself to a recruiter who was looking for someone with skills similar to mine. I presented my CV and asked if he had a few minutes to look it over and chat with me. It took only a few moments before he looked puzzled and asked how I had gone from there to there to here. I smiled and said it was an example of not knowing where life's path will lead but to follow it anyway.
For me, it's been a full circle:
- I enrolled in chemical engineering at Purdue, switched to pharmacy, was a production operator at a local pharmaceutical manufacturer, interned in the FDA's Office of Compliance, graduated, worked part time as a dispensing pharmacist, and joined the Upjohn Company where I did technical support for manufacturing and became the point person for the startup of a new parenteral plant in Taiwan.
- I came home to Indianapolis and joined Eli Lilly where I was involved with Design of Experiments for a new product scale up, was responsible for launching the new Statistical Process Control program for the tablet and capsule plant, and led the transfer of a manual and complex dose control algorithm to a plant-wide Manufacturing Execution System for IT.
- I retired early (or was that just being in between jobs after 33 years?).
- I began lecturing for the Biotechnology Innovation and Regulatory Science (BIRS) program at Purdue. Rejoining Purdue, this time as an instructor rather than as a student, was the completion of that circle.
For that last point, there are back and continuing stories. Jan Fourman, my lovely wife of 38 years, has been deeply involved with teaching in the BIRS program and its predecessors for several years. Her coaxing led me into a bit of un-retirement (is or isn't that networking?!). My first stint was joining her and a team of others for a week of teaching at the BIRS Sub-Saharan Africa cohort. It represents six countries and meets at the Kilimanjaro School of Pharmacy (KSP) in Tanzania. (We nicknamed ourselves "Team Fourman" and by the time you read this, we will have completed our third trip to KSP and will have congratulated the first set of students graduating from the program.)
For my part, I've always enjoyed showing people how fundamental knowledge or theory can be applied to real-life situations. Often that revolves around applying statistics and computer systems to the making of medicine. I enjoy sharing life experiences about the impact I've seen them make. I'm aware that not everyone identifies with those disciplines so I usually wrap up my lectures with, "Even if you're not into these subjects, at least be advocates for those that are because they can make a big difference in your company, agency, or organization."
Last fall I was invited to teach a portion of IT 50700 (Measurement and Evaluation in Industry and Technology). The subject matter was not trivial and the course was delivered online rather than in a traditional classroom format. Even with those challenges we successfully completed our work with 13 students in the U.S. and 21 in the Africa cohort.
Along the way there was an opportunity to apply technology in a new way. The weather was great and the leaves were in full color in Indiana but there were also homework papers to grade. Rather than sit inside, I rode my motorcycle to a picnic table on southern Indiana's Skyline Drive, made my cell phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, took out my laptop and then graded the papers that were residing on Purdue servers in West Lafayette, many of which had been submitted electronically from another continent!
Lastly, I'd taken the Strong Interest Inventory several times over the years. Typically high scoring for me were engineer, pharmacist, systems analyst, and college professor. By becoming involved with the BIRS and ProSTAR programs, I've now had an opportunity to play roles relating to all of them. Thank you, and Boiler Up!