Beckman Coulter

Beckman Coulter is ... Science Serving Humanity. We exist to advance medical science. We apply the infinite promise of biotechnology to serve the world's healthcare needs. Our mission is to be recognized as the world leader in blood cell analysis systems. Our strategy for achieving this is: We will lead in the application of emerging technologies to meet the present and future needs of worldwide customers for blood cell analysis. We will provide the best worldwide sales and customer support services. We will foster a work environment characterized by open communications, quality practices, teamwork, pride, self-development, and respect for each individual. We will remain private and independent. Beckman Coulter, Inc. is the world leader in the design and production of devices to automatically count and analyze blood cells, a key function of the modern clinical laboratory. Many hospitals and clinics rely on Coulter Counters. In fact, company literature declares that "about 95% of all blood cell counters in use are either manufactured by Coulter or are clones. ..." Beckman Coulter also produces various reagents needed to run and maintain its machines. To assist its customers, Beckman Coulter provides a 24-hour hotline for technical assistance. These two sources give the firm significant portions of its annual revenues. With over 2,400 patents, the firm and its two founders, brothers Wallace and Joseph Coulter, Jr., are well-known for innovative technology. For example, this family firm provides monoclonal antibodies to help fight cancer cells and also an HIV test as part of its recent diversification. With subsidiaries in Canada, Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand, Beckman Coulter is a major international firm in the biomedical industry. Wallace Coulter was the key person in the early history of Coulter Corporation (the name under which the company operated until early 1998). Born in 1913 in Little Rock, Arkansas, Coulter as a boy began experimenting with electricity. He pursued that interest through his high school years at Monroe, Louisiana, and as a student at Fulton, Missouri's Westminster College and at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He sold X-ray equipment for General Electric in Southeast Asia in the early 1930s, and then in 1937 he went to several nations after being forced out of China by the Japanese invasion. In 1946 Wallace Coulter was working in Chicago, where he spent much of his spare time tinkering with electronics with his younger brother Joseph R. Coulter, Jr., who had graduated from Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology and was working as a Motorola engineer. Working in his basement, Wallace in the late 1940s invented what became known as the Coulter Principle, a way of counting small particles in fluid. A test tube with a small pinhole was placed in a conductive solution, such as salt water, which contained the dissolved particles. A negative electrode was inserted into the tube, while a positive electrode was placed in the solution, creating an electric current. A vacuum pump drew the fluid through the pinhole, but each small particle interrupted the current and thus created a pulse. The size of the pulse indicated the size of the particle; the frequency of the pulses indicated how many particles were in the solution. This basic discovery started automated hematology. Before Coulter Counters were developed, lab technicians had used time-consuming and somewhat unreliable manual methods to count red and white blood cells. The Coulter brothers made and patented the first Coulter Counter Model A in 1953, with help from a federal grant. It automatically counted red blood cells in about 10 minutes. They continued to make Coulter Counters one-by-one and gradually hospitals requested more of these time-saving and accurate devices. In 1958 the Coulter brothers formed Coulter Electronics, Inc., and three years later they moved their growing business to Hial