ChemPharmaź History

Responding to the challenging job market for chemical and pharmaceutical executives, early members of the ChemPharmaâ Professional Association banded together to help one another with their job searches. The regular meetings offered presentations by leading experts and helpful networking and sharing. Job leads and connections with hiring managers were shared along with coaching and grooming member profiles and interview skills.

ChemPharma was started by Kirk Jacobs, John Burgess and Paul Veneskey at  Drake Beam Morin and then moved to Manchester in Parsippany, NJ, in 1999 and in Philadelphia at Kelleher Associates. The NJ group met at the Manchester for two years under the continuing leadership of John Stanulonis.  The group had no more than a dozen or so members at the time.  Some of these early members included: Ralph Lutz, Jay Ansell, Ross Armbrecht, Judy Miao, Mel Lofurno, Shaun Clancy, Bob Graf, Joe Pona, Russ Potter & Steve Sarb.  While the Philly group stopped momentarily, it was restarted by Paul Veneskey and Dennis Berry in 2001.

Steve Sarb set up the group's first ever websites through Bizland which was subsequently managed by Shaun Clancy.  The site was very basic but it served its purpose of giving us exposure to recruiters.  Ralph Lutz and then Joe Porcelli managed a Yahoo group's job lead distribution system.  

By 2002, the group had grown to about 180 members, 30 or 40 of which would show up regularly at the NJ meeting. Regional chapters in PA, East of Hudson had been started to serve members better.  Some of the more active members at this time were: Judy Miao, Len Keck, Bill Schriver, Bodo Albrecht, Joe Porcelli, Mike Chen, Joe Rocky and Milton Chin. The ChemPharma logo in use today was created in 2002    Web hosting fees for our services necessitated a membership fee.  The Morris County Library in Morristown allowed the needed space for meeting attendance. The group rapidly grew to 350 members by 2003 and to 650 by 2004.  During ChemPharma's transition period 2002-2004 the group was guided by Shaun Clancy, Joe Porcelli and Bodo Albrecht.

By 2003, groups had formed in Chicago and East of Hudson and a web site www.chempharma.net was established.  The group decided to incorporate lead by Len Keck, Rich Brautigam, Paul Veneskey and Faruq Marikar with a board of directors that represented members from each chapter location.  This was done to satisfy the growing need for expense funding, administration, website maintenance and formalize membership requirements.  Len Keck was our first Board Chairman in 2004, followed by Gerald  DeCuollo in 2005, Eric Borgstedt in 2006  and Brad Schweon in 2007.

In 2005 the portion of landed members continued to grow exceeding 50%.  Our mission expanded to incorporate programming for our landed members with evening socials and news of networking events of interest to our members. A decision was made to help consultants with their missions.  A more formal dues and membership structure was defined to afford improved services.  Our leaders forged partnering relationships with the Chemists Club, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, The Wharton Club, CDMA and ACS among many other professional organizations where our leaders shared leadership roles.

From day one our members agreed to help others in their career advancement.  The process of "paying it forward" helping others often resulted in some of the best career opportunities.  Now our landed members are also helping each other with business process advice and assistance.