QuanTEM Chronicles - October 2008
QuanTEM Laboratories
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 A Message from John
Barnett, PresidentHello Friends:
I am amazed when ever our country goes
through an election cycle (the next one starts as soon as this
winner is sworn in). I always get the feeling I'm
NOT hearing the whole truth, usually it's anything but the
truth. Several years ago I read the book "The
West Point Way"; the gist of this book was that while going through
West Point cadets found that being 100% honest and living totally in
an environment of truthfulness was a major prerequisite to being
allowed to continue in the program. A lie or
cover up meant expulsion. Now we all know that
the campaign machines tend to embellish the positive for themselves
and the negative for their opponents, but what we see today, I
believe, goes beyond embellishment. My point is
that this not only wears us down but it also puts undue strain on
our economy.
Now let's add in a few real economic woes, add
in the sensationalism we get from the press and suddenly everyone
gets concerned about their economic future. Any
company manager worth his salt must take in consideration the
ramifications this may have on the future of their
business. We all want to be around next
year. The outcome of this is that no matter how
strong our businesses are, we begin to slow down our purchases, put
expansion plans on the back burner, take a closer look at staffing
and in-turn do our part to slow down the economy.
What we should be doing is pushing our business forward,
investing in ways to find the work our companies need and
aggressively planning for the future.
Don't go crazy on me here, I know that no one business or for
that matter, no one industry can cause a turnaround in the economy
but, small business is the backbone of our country.
If each one of us just took a positive attitude toward the
future and looked for the opportunities these times offer, I believe
we would see a stronger and faster recovery of the overall economy
and our companies would prosper.
OK, so now you know my soap
box. Have a great day.
John Barnett
President
QuanTEM Laboratories, LLC
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Environmental illnesses are gaining attention, thanks to the
'green' movement
by Angela
Townsend/Plain Dealer Reporter
Tuesday October 14, 2008, 8:58
AM
You move to a new city
and into an old house that you fall in love with at first sight.
A year later, you develop a nagging cough that even the
strongest prescription cough syrup can't seem to tame.
At
first your doctor says your symptoms are all in your head but then
suggests you might have some kind of incurable respiratory disease.
She refers you to an ear, nose and throat specialist. After
a battery of tests, he concludes that you have borderline asthma and
puts you on two daily medications.
A couple of years later, you
still have the cough, but it's not as bad. Another new doctor
decides you have allergies and switches your medication.
A
friend of yours suggests you get your house tested for mold.
It sounds weird, but he explains that it's the same advice
he just got from his doctor.
He developed a sensitivity to
mold that in recent years had grown much worse. A visit to an expert
in neurotoxic poisoning confirmed what he suspected for a while:
Other doctors may have been diagnosing and treating him for
illnesses he didn't have.
If he didn't change his
surroundings, his situation could turn deadly.
The scenario,
based on experiences of real people, is typical of many who suffer
from environmental illnesses or chemical sensitivities.
You
can read the rest of this great story HERE
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Asbestos Investigation: Authorities
Want Property Owner Behind Bars
Newschannel 9 in Chattanooga, TN posted
this story detailing what can happen when property owners violate
asbestos removal laws. Let people know that proper sampling,
testing and abatement can spare them a lot of legal troubles.
-SG
Authorities are looking for the owner of a
property in Rossville that's being investigated for an Asbestos
violation.
Tenants inside of the old Peerless Mills property
have been telling us for months that the property's owner, Les
Coffey, has been improperly removing Asbestos from the property.
Since then several environmental agencies started their own
investigations, one tenant told us that Coffey illegally evicted
him, and now the Walker County Sheriff's Department wants Coffey
behind bars.
Full coverage HERE
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Dave's Top Ten Reasons for choosing a lab.
 by Jeff
Mlekush, Lab Director, QuanTEM Laboratories, LLC
Well,
maybe not Dave's top ten but how about your top three reasons to choose a
lab. Through talking with people in the environmental industry
for decades now, recurring themes become apparent in the
requirements environmental professionals expect of their laboratory:
Quality, Integrity, and Timeliness.
First and foremost,
you should expect that your laboratory hold quality as its highest
standard. Quality should be pervasive throughout the
organization and should be apparent as soon as the phone is answered
at the lab. After all, customer service is the most important
reason to provide quality work - a quality lab will remember that
you're the customer and will address you on a personal basis.
Maybe I'm old fashioned but when I call a lab, I want to hear
"Hello" from a human voice, not "Press 1 for English."
To most of our customers accreditation is vital.
Your lab should have some sort of independent organization (i.e.
AIHA, NVLAP, A2LA) reviewing quality systems, personnel
qualifications, and instrument requirements. Quality
laboratories will spend the money (accreditations are expensive) to
prove to you that they provide legally defensible data.
Your lab should also show integrity. Good
laboratories will be honest with you on all subjects from pricing to
whether or not the lab can even perform the analysis you
request. Don't get mad at your lab if they tell you they can't
analyze the 5000 samples you want to send them by the end of the
following day; they are just being honest in what they can
provide. Good labs will keep your project information
confidential and not answer questions from anyone outside your
company without your authorization. Sometimes your lab will be
the bearer of bad news. That is, they will give you results that are
unexpected. Again, don't get mad. Just ask
questions. You should question your laboratory if something
seems strange in the results. No lab is perfect and good ones
will investigate your questions to determine if there was a problem
in the processing of your samples. And, if there was a
problem, they will make it right.
One of the biggest
complaints I hear is that the lab doesn't get the results to them on
time. Your laboratory should be in contact with you if there
is a problem meeting your requested turnaround time - before the due
date! Often, I hear that you call your lab looking for results
that were due two days ago, the lab tells you the results are
"almost ready," yet you still don't get your results for two more
days. This will not
happen at QuanTEM. We may be the only laboratory in the
country that tracks turnaround times. QuanTEM may not be
perfect, but for the third quarter of 2008, 98.5% of our
turnarounds were on time!
If you want to see the Turnaround Time report, give
Shawn or John a call at 1-800-822-1650. They'll be glad to
share our findings with you because when you deal with QuanTEM
Laboratories, you're dealing with the best.
Remember
QuanTEM
Fast-
Accurate-Professional
.
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CLEVELAND
-- A panel of three judges tossed 30,000 asbestos injury claims out
of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Monday following an Ohio
Supreme Court ruling last week that upheld limits on such
cases.
Judge Harry Hanna, one of the judges handling
thousands of asbestos claims for the court, called the move "more or
less a bookkeeping entry" and said that the dismissal of the cases
is not as harsh as it sounds.
He said the cases were all low
priorities for the county court because plaintiffs were not
seriously sick. If plaintiffs start showing symptoms of asbestos
damage to their lungs, he said, the cases can be reinstated.
"They
weren't going to get near the courtroom as long as they were,
relatively speaking, asymptomatic," Hanna said. Lawyers
for plaintiffs in asbestos cases could not be reached Monday night.
The
story from the Cleveland Plain
Dealer
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Italy museum says da Vinci writings gather no
mold
MILAN, Italy (AP) - Curators of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus said Tuesday
that fears the collection of drawings and writings had been
infiltrated by mold are groundless.
The Biblioteca Ambrosiana
commissioned a microbiological analysis of the document after some
scholars warned last year that the Codex had sprouted
mold.
The full AP
Story
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