Robert Thomas

Robert (Rob) Thomas was raised in the mining and industrial communities of South Wales in the UK in the 1960s, where social activities revolved around playing rugby, drinking beer and complaining about the incessant rain! When he finally graduated from Gwent College of Technology, with a graduate degree in chemistry in 1973, he realized there was a bigger world out there and ventured out to experience the bright lights and gold paved roads of the London area, where he ended up working for a US-based analytical instrumentation company. He spent 10 years learning how to communicate with the English-speaking world and applying his chemistry knowledge to the field of Atomic Spectroscopy. The parent company soon learned of his immense skills and transferred him to Connecticut, USA, in 1987, where he eventually ended up specializing in the field of ICP-MS. Along the way he has become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and also a Chartered Chemistry (CChem). He is accredited with over 70 publications on analytical chemistry and 3 textbooks on ICP-MS. For the past 13 years he has been principle of his own consulting company, based in Gaithersburg, MD.