History

In 1961, Lancaster Laboratories was founded by Dr. Earl H. Hess to provide high quality analytical services with personal attention to area agribusinesses and industries. Nourished in a culture of quality, service and caring about all those associated with the business, Lancaster Laboratories has become an industry leader known for innovative business practices and people-friendly policies.

Within the laboratory community, Lancaster Laboratories has pioneered many significant accomplishments. Some of these initiatives include:

• Being a charter member of, and the first laboratory accredited by, the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation.
• Preparing the first qualifications manual in the lab industry and implementing a total quality management system in 1989.
• Pioneering computerized laboratory information management systems in the 70s and designing a model automated system for retrieval and storage of samples—the only laboratory to have such a system.
• Initiating innovative and nationally recognized family friendly workforce polices including development of an on-site family center with child-care, adult-day-care and fitness centers (Lancaster Laboratories has been on Working Mother magazine's list of "Best Companies for Working Mothers" 11 times).
• Purchasing Microchem Laboratories, one of Ireland's leading testing and research laboratories.
• Launching LabAccess.com, the industry’s most innovative on-line data access tool that gives customers 24/7 on-line access to their data from project start through signed reports.
• Completion of 11 building additions to our facility in Lancaster, PA, growing from a 2,500-square-foot lab with three employees in 1961 to a present size of 260,000-square-feet with more than 1000 employees worldwide.

Today, Lancaster Laboratories is a wholly owned subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific (www.thermofisher.com), providing environmental, pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and scientific staffing services with uncompromising quality and superlative service, just as it has for five decades.