Award Winner

Stan Stearns is the founder and director of research of the VICI group of companies. Born in 1942 in Miami, his childhood included time spent with his inventor father, his airplane mechanic neighbor, and a chemistry set. After college he worked briefly as a forensic chemist, followed by a position with Wilkens Instruments, later acquired by Varian Associates.

During his time at Wilkens he worked in all areas of the company, including applications, service, and sales. This broad background led him to research in separation science, where he worked to improve products and solve customers’ problems. Stearns even began to take scientific instruments home with him to experiment with new materials.

In 1968, at the age of 25, Stearns, who had created a new valve design, founded VICI Valco Instruments. Though the valves were made in a machine shop, the Stearns living room was the epicenter of the business. He and his wife built instruments, typed up invoices, packed products, billed, and shipped the boxes all from there. It was the quintessential American dream start-up.

Over the next 50 years Stearns pioneered the development of smaller, more efficient components and instruments with more than 50,000 different parts and products, still unrivaled in selection and technological reach. Valco Instruments has since grown into the VICI group of companies, with more than 500 employees world- wide at multiple locations in the United States, Switzerland, Italy, and Canada.

Stearns holds 48 patents, including for various pulse discharge detectors and a device used to administer in- tratumoral radiotherapy. He was honored with the R&D 100 Award for the pulsed discharge electron capture detector and the EXL Technology HPLC injector, and he has authored or coauthored more than 30 publications.

He is active on several boards, including Amegy Bank and the Oregon State University Veterinary School. Stearns is also the founder and president of the Gabriel Institute, whose mission is to treat canine osteosarcoma and to provide canine-assisted therapy.

Stearns graduated with an ACS-approved BS in chemistry from Florida State University and then spent time in postgraduate directed studies.