Bio-Rad Employee Blog

Meet Tom

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

Tom Davies, a senior technical support manager at Bio-Rad, says one of the things that motivates him each day is Bio-Rad’s mission to advance scientific discovery and improve healthcare. “I think our mission is very heroic,” he says. “There’s strong moral integrity in the discovery process, and when you consider the clinical market, we’ve got to make sure that our instruments are reporting accurate information. People’s lives are at stake.”

Thankfully, Tom says Bio-Rad is filled with people who take this responsibility seriously, and it shows in the Company’s products. “Our people are very customer-centric and they want to do what’s right for our customers,” Tom says. “Bio-Rad also has great technology and some innovative products that offer great value to our customers.”

Tom, a molecular biologist by trade, says that he’s built relationships with a number of colleagues at Bio-Rad who have helped him excel in different roles. “We have very talented people here,” he says. “I think that’s been instrumental in my journey. I’ve taken on projects and roles that have been very new to me. Knowing there are people willing to support you as you develop makes all the difference when you’re in a new role.”

“Bio-Rad continues to supply me with a lot of opportunities to grow, and to learn new things, and since joining the company my knowledge of this business has expanded,” Tom adds. “They’ve taken a chance on me, and that’s been crucial to my job satisfaction.”

Ready for a role that challenges you? View our open positions here.

Meet Hector

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

What makes a hero at Bio-Rad? Just ask Hector Macias-Saldivar, a BioPharma Account Executive at Bio-Rad. “I believe a hero is defined by heroic acts — instances where the person goes above and beyond the call of duty,” he says.

During his five plus years at Bio-Rad, Hector has grown from an application scientist, to an account manager, and now to a BioPharma Account Executive, where he meets with customers in a variety of industries. “I meet with Bio-Pharma and Bio-Tech groups and I assess their needs in the genomics space,” he says. “And what I provide them are solutions that we have here at Bio-Rad, from equipment, to consumables, to services.”

For Hector, the most important part of his job is not selling products, but creating relationships. “I build relationships with these groups that span many years, so the hope is not only to sell something but to foster growth between both sides.”

From a personal perspective, Hector says what keeps him coming back to work each day is the Company's commitment to providing opportunities to grow. "At Bio-Rad, it’s not just words," he says. "They are actively trying to promote and foster the growth of my career."

Looking for a place you can grow? View our open positions here.

Meet Frida

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

Ask Frida Salcedo what makes a hero, and she’ll tell you it comes down to something we all strive for. “A hero is someone who’s always doing the right thing,” says the Genomics Sales Specialist. “Or making really tough decisions that will better everyone.”

During her five plus years at Bio-Rad, Frida has moved from inside sales, to an account manager position in the field, and finally to a Genomics Sales Specialist managing large accounts in the Bay Area. “It’s been an awesome journey working for Bio-Rad and being able to have so many opportunities that have allowed me to grow more.”

Frida says her heroes are her parents. “They moved to California from Venezuela to give my brother and I a better life,” she says. “They worked hard, often holding two or three jobs each to provide for us and make sure we received a great education.”

To this day, Frida values her education and says there are always opportunities to learn new things at Bio-Rad. "Honestly, I really love learning. I feel like I’ve been given so many opportunities here to learn, grow, and gain a bigger skill set."

Looking to grow your career? View our open positions here.

Meet Woei

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

While we often, rightfully so, think of heroes as those on the frontlines of emergencies and pandemics, at Bio-Rad we believe heroes do the little things, too.

Woei Tan, a senior staff scientist for Bio-Rad, believes even a small fraction of time can have a
big impact on someone else. “I think a hero is someone who’s willing to give up some of their time to help somebody else,” says Woei. “If I can put away 5 minutes of my precious time every day and help a fellow employee to resolve a problem, I think that’s something huge.”

Woei says one of his favorite aspects of his job is solving complex problems. “That’s one thing that motivates me a lot, that makes me want to come back to work each day: to help solve problems,” Woei says. “Things don’t always work out the way we expect them to work out, simply because we’re dealing with biology.” Ultimately, it’s through collaboration and teamwork at Bio-Rad that problems are not only solved, but turned into strengths.

As the leader of a team, Woei says it’s now his responsibility to pass on this mentality, while also helping those on his team to succeed. “Part of my job is to make sure my direct reports are growing and helping to pave their career path, just like 17 years ago when someone helped me out when I first came to Bio-Rad.”

Ready for a heroic new role? View our open positions here.

Meet Cindy

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

Cindy Perry doesn’t like to take days off. A self-proclaimed “Jill of all trades,” the Mastercrasftsman from Bio-Rad's Manufacturing Warehouse in Richmond, California says her time at Bio-Rad has been the most rewarding of her career.

“My job is hard sometimes,” she says. “I have to physically take pipes apart or undo big nuts and bolts and all kinds of hard work, but it’s the best job that I’ve ever had.”

She says what makes her job so rewarding is the people she works alongside. “At the plant I work, there are great people, and we’re all kind of a family over here,” Cindy says. “Everybody treats each other with respect, and they all help each other out.”

Aside from making for a great place to work, she says this willingness to help each other is heroic, too. “Heroes are people that are willing to help,” Cindy says. “A hero could be my coworker who just finished a big job and I consider him a hero because he got it done and now the system’s working...They’re just your average person, who wants to do right.”

Cindy knows a thing or two about helping people, too. Not only is she a lead for her location’s Emergency Response Team — prior to coming to Bio-Rad, Cindy also trained and worked as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) responding to emergencies.

Looking for a job that challenges you? View our open positions here.

Meet Sadie

Tue, 05 May 2020 19:00:00 +0000

Not everyone knows what they want in a career at first, but at Bio-Rad, we strive to help employees find their passions. This was the case for Sadie Eicher of Bio-Rad’s Clinical Diagnostics Group, who says Bio-Rad helped her discover what she was best at.

“I never, ever would have thought of myself as a marketer — I think of myself more as a scientist,” Sadie says.

Despite her background in translational medicine, Sadie was encouraged to take a Marketing internship with Bio-Rad. “I loved it,” she says. “They knew how to use what I could do. It was both rewarding and interesting, and it made it super clear for me when I graduated that I wanted to work here.”

Sadie came back to Bio-Rad after finishing her master’s program, and now works as a product manager in the clinical immunology division of Clinical Diagnostics. Today, she says the people she works alongside are her favorite part of her job.

“I really like the people that I work with here, and almost anybody you talk to at Bio-Rad, that’s the first thing they’re going to say,” she says. “And when you’re starting your career, I think that’s so important. I couldn’t think of a better opportunity than what I’ve been given here.”

Ready to discover your passion? View our open positions here.

Meet Praveena

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 19:00:00 +0000

At Bio-Rad, we pride ourselves on providing opportunities for employees to develop their careers and take on new challenges. Just ask Sr. R&D Manager, Praveena Garimella, who has worked on a number of exciting projects in different roles since joining Bio-Rad in 2012.

“I first visited Bio-Rad while as a post-doctoral at UC Berkeley,” Praveena says, “and I was very impressed by the Bio-Rad campus, different people I met during my visit, and the fact that Bio-Rad seemed to have a great work culture.” She was hired as a Senior Scientist in the Bio-Consumables R&D group and later became part of a newly created Chemistry group that set up a new Synthetic Chemistry lab at Bio-Rad's Hercules campus.

Praveena has also held roles as a Staff Scientist and Sr. Staff Scientist, during which she worked on the introduction of Bio-Rad's Star-bright Product line for Western Blotting and Flow Cytometry applications. While her career has taken many exciting turns, she says one of the constant joys she has is working alongside people who feel like family.

"One of the cool things about Bio-Rad is that it’s like a big communal family here,” she says. “If there’s something you don’t understand or are curious about, people are very approachable and friendly. So just ask and you’ll find someone and you may learn a new skill.”

Ready to find your work family? View our open positions here.

Bio-Rad Learning Academy Launches

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 19:00:00 +0000

August 2022

Our newly launched Bio-Rad Learning Academy was designed to help employees explore and enhance critical skill sets that support their career goals as well as our top company goals. In this video, Simon May, executive vice president and president of Bio-Rad's Life Science Group, discusses the importance of "Presentation Skills," a foundational skill set taught in the Learning Academy.

July 2022

In our ongoing commitment to the growth and development of our employees, Bio-Rad is proud to announce the launch of the new Global Bio-Rad Learning Academy. The Learning Academy was designed to help our 7,900+ employees explore and enhance the most critical skill sets that support their career aspirations and our top company goals.

To strengthen our program, we collaborated with expert consultants and cross-functional teams within Bio-Rad to ensure that our learning content is relevant and beneficial for employees at every level of our organization. This provides an opportunity for our employees to plan and customize their individual development journeys.

As Bio-Rad continues to adapt to an increasingly virtual workplace, the Learning Academy offers our employees a robust collection of learning resources that can be accessed from anywhere at any time. In addition to self-paced eLearning content, the Learning Academy also features virtual, instructor-led courses so that our employees can still enjoy the benefits of real-time, peer-to-peer interaction and feedback.

Looking to "level up" your career? Click here to search our job opportunities.

Bio-Rad Receives My Green Lab Certification

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 20:00:00 +0000

December 2022

Bio-Rad is proud to announce that one of our Northern California labs has received a My Green Lab Platinum Certification, among the highest possible rankings. My Green Lab Certification is considered the "gold standard" for laboratory sustainability best practices around the world.

Kaiti Schwartz, a scientist in Bio-Rad's Life Science Group (LSG) Reagents R&D team, says obtaining the certification has helped her become more conscious of how to reduce environmental impact both in and out of the lab. “I feel really good about the fact that I can do these things in the laboratory as well as in my personal life,” Kaiti says. “I feel like everything that I’m doing and the choices I’m making are making a difference.”

Bio-Rad's My Green Lab Team from left to right: Kaiti Schwartz, Ciera Khuu, Evan Bursey, and Aryan Samar. The Life Science Reagents R&D lab received the certification in October after an assessment of lab practices, equipment, waste, and procurement.

After receiving a rating of 37% from My Green Lab in March, Kaiti says she and three colleagues began taking steps to decrease the environmental footprint of their research – from reducing daily plastic waste to changing the freezer temperature from –80 degrees Celsius to –70 and turning off lab equipment that is not in use. The culmination of these efforts was a new rating of 71% for the lab in October, which landed Bio-Rad the Platinum level certification (levels go Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Green).

The certification is part of a companywide focus on sustainability at Bio-Rad, but it also shows the impact all of us can make when making incremental improvements in our daily lives.

“It just made me think about what I did every part of my day,” Kaiti says. “And now I run around and turn lights off.”

Want to join a company that values sustainability? View our open roles.