Scientific Consulting Offers Independence And Flexibility

In 1976, biochemist Fred Rothstein, of Long Beach, Calif., decided that he had "too much of an entrepreneurial personality to deal with the structure of corporate or academic life." Rothstein, whose experience included 20 years teaching physiology at Tufts University Medical School and five years as an industrial scientist with Miles Laboratories and Abbott Laboratories, struck out on his own and became a consultant to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Since then, he says, he has earned "enough to put two children through Eastern colleges and one through medical school." Gary Anderson, 41, whose career path also includes experience in both industry and academia, says he regarded consulting as "a natural sequence" when he founded his business, Tres-Ark Inc. in Edina, Minn., a year and a half ago. Anderson, whose six-person firm helps companies bring particle technology to the marketplace by providing sales, marketing, and technical support, says consulting fees of $1,000 per day are not uncommon. Other scientific consultants to high-technology enterprises peg their fees at $150 to $200 per hour. Yet many successful consultants say that the opportunity to increase their salary was not their main reason for embarking on a consulting career. Most list the intellectual challenge and the desire for independence, flexibility, and diversity as their primary motivations. "I didn't get into consulting to make money," explains Barbara Corn, who in 1983 parlayed a degree in chemistry, a 17-year career in aerospace, and knowledge of computers into B.C. Consulting Inc., a Torrance, Calif.-based consulting practice that serves the aerospace industry and the U.S. Air Force. "I was looking for more challenging and more varied work, and I have found it," Corn says. "Consulting means leaving behind security, but gaining greater challenge," says Roger Shamel, whose Lexington, Mass.-based Consulting Resources Corp. has offered management and scientific expertise to biotechnology firms since 1981. "It has offered me the opportunity to serve a new industry, give the industry a bigger thrust, do it in my own [style], and deal with smaller firms as well as Fortune 500 companies," says Shamel, who has a master's degree in chemistry as well as an MBA. Most consultants to high-technology industries combine scientific or technical expertise with industry-specific business acumen. In addition to credentials in chemistry or engineering, consultants or consulting firms often possess experience in product positioning, marketing, strategy, field applications, divestitures, and investments. Shamel's Consulting Resources, for example, has been called in to advise government agencies building biomanu-facturing facilities, as well as a foreign company seeking to purchase a United States biotechnology firm. Anderson's Tres-Ark has been contracted to detect contamination in facilities, identify the source of the contamination, and determine how to eliminate it. By nature, the consultant is a creative yet analytical risk-taker who can cope with isolation, rejection, and lack of recognition. He or she has to educate clients in order to develop trust and not be perceived as a threat to in-house scientific professionals. In addition, the consultant has to be goal-oriented, aggressive in promoting his or her services, and flexible and organized enough to move from deadline to deadline and project to project. "The major factor is intellectual honesty: knowing what you know and what you don't know, facing up to it, and relating to clients on that basis," says Roth-stein. "You have to be honest with yourself and potential clients." He and Anderson emphasize that a consultant should be able to deal with a variety of personality types with patience and self-control. "Consulting is not for the faint-hearted. You have to learn how to take rejection," adds biochemist Michael Gallagher, a partner in Bioventure Resources Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. One year ago, Gallagher and bacteriologist Franklin Heasley left executive management positions in the biotechnology industry to found Bioventure Resources, recruitment consultants for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic, fine chemical, and reagent companies. The pair had been at their jobs in industry for a year and a half before founding Bioventure Resources. For scientists wishing to explore consulting as a career option, here are some tips from successful consultants to high-technology industries: Gary Anderson (mechanical engineer), Tres-Ark Inc.: "Learn the technology, so that you can talk to clients in layman's terms. Learn that there are different personality types. Develop your listening and selling skills. Create ethos and believability." E.J. Braeme (Ph.D. in analytical spectroscopy), The Cecon Group Inc.: "It's easier to be a consulting group than an individual consultant. An organization with a number of people has more time to put together business, marketing, and consulting activities at the outset, and more freedom once it's established." Tom Heinsheimer (Ph.D. in atmospheric physics), Titan Systems: "Consulting is a matter of what you know, the uniqueness of that knowledge, whether the knowledge is commercially viable, and how you package it so that it's saleable." Roger Shamel (chemist), Consulting Resources Corp.: "Above all, be totally honest with yourself and the client, and be sure you put your integrity first and foremost. Do that, and have expertise to offer, and you'll do well as a consultant." Donald Truss (analytical chemist), Science Temps: "I could not do the work without being in the trenches myself for 10 years. Consultants think people will come to them, but there's a considerable marketing effort involved." Knowing that the Northeast had a large pool of unemployed chemists and a large base of companies that needed them, analytical chemist Donald Truss left his job in analytical research and development at a pharmaceutical firm to found Science Temps in Cranford, N.J., in 1986. Truss, who had been promoting consultants who testified as expert witnesses in trials, currently concentrates on supplying temporary scientific personnel to the chemical industry. Many scientific consultants are university professors who became involved in licensing agreements and technology transfer programs with emerging industries, such as biotechnology, and have remained as consultants to the companies. Another group of consultants evolved from the growing population of early retirees and outplaced executives. For instance, the Cecon Group of Newark, Del., started out in 1985 as a group of eight retirees who wanted to keep themselves active. Today, the company has 200 consultants of all ages, including analytical chemists, biochemists, chemical engineers, depth perception engineers, and psychologists, according to E.J. Braeme, the company president, who has a Ph.D. in analytical spectroscopy. The firm's consultants serve as expert witnesses for lawyers and insurance adjusters and help to develop products or formulations for small and medium-sized companies. For younger scientists and technical experts, consulting is the logical outgrowth of making the right career moves and building experience and contacts. As Anderson says, "Life is a matter of walking through a series of corridors. The better you do at each stage, the more doors stay open." Consultants, along with other kinds of independent contractors and temporary and part-time workers, constitute what economists call the contingent work force. The Employee Benefits Research Council in Washington, D.C., says that 22.6 million Americans are contingent workers. Scientific and technical consulting is growing. The American Chemical Society estimates that the U.S. chemical industry spends $1.5 billion on consulting services of all kinds, including $500 million on chemical consulting. Industries in transition, including petrochemical and aerospace/defense, are working with consultants, as are new industries, such as biotechnology. Rather than simply providing an extra pair of hands, consultants often represent a different focus or a different opinion on product development. They can offer a fresh, broad-based perspective garnered from experience with similar companies facing similar challenges, including bringing new products to the marketplace or entering new markets. "In some ways it's easy to get established as a consultant, because you don't need a lot of capital. You just need an office, a word processor, a telephone, and a fax," says Shamel. "But there's no easy way to get clients," he says. "You make contacts over the years. There's no fast way to get repeat business and referrals. It takes time, experience, hard work, and the ability to convince your prospective clients that you have capabilities and can deliver." Corn says that she started by incorporating and buying a computer. "Then I called everybody I knew and told them what I had done," she says. "I was well-networked, which is absolutely vital. I was with the right technology at the right time, and then I started proliferating." Anderson and Rothstein also emphasize networking with personal contacts by means of calls and letters. "When I got into consulting, I had been around the industry for a long time," says Rothstein. "You need to establish your reputation beforehand. I also have a career summary pinpointing my education, competence, and problems I've worked on that I use as an introduction." Building on their established expertise and contacts, the eight scientists who started the Cecon Group focused on attending various trade shows and exhibits, handing out brochures, and obtaining referrals, according to Braeme. Heasley and Gallagher of Bioventure Resources supplemented their industry contacts with advertising, direct mail, and cold calls. Truss of Science Temps started his company by advertising in trade journals and newspapers. Once consultants have garnered a prospective client's attention, they have to create proposals that sell the service to more than one audience. As Corn explains, "You're proposing technical services to technical people, but the document will be passed along to the bean counters. It has to be readable to the technical person and everyone concerned, covering technical details and explanations in plain English. It has to be succinct with a realistic schedule and a realistic cost. You also have to understand what the client needs, which may not be what he thinks he needs." Braeme agrees. "The proposal involves being sure that what you do meets the needs of the company," he says, adding that the existence of such a document serves to clarify not only what the client needs done, but also the terms under which the work will be performed. "Have it written down, so that everybody understands it." "The key element of the proposal is the definition of the problem," Rothstein says. "Then build on that and recognize what goes into the solution." Anderson's proposals "position the project so that clients know we're technical people with expertise and history." Beyond that, his firm requires a commitment of up-front capital from the client "to show that the company is behind the project." The proposals prepared by Shamel's firm include brief background information on the project, the purpose of the work, a definition of its scope, a description of the approach (including the expected timing of reports to the client), and the duration and cost of the project. Other elements of a proposal cited by consultants are confidentiality requirements, credentials of the consultants, subcontract services to be used, and the limitations of the consultant's liability. Technical consultants have found that small, medium-sized, and large companies all can make use of their services. In order to be valuable to the client, the consultant often has to realize that the client's technical staff, though competent, may not be "seeing the forest for the trees," according to Rothstein. He says the consultant's role is "to make recommendations that make sense" from a data-based argument to balance viewpoints within a firm, and, when a recommendation is not well received, to accept the fact that the client makes the final decision. "A consultant can help a young company to avoid making mistakes, especially when the company has employees who have never made a product for sale and don't realize what's involved," Rothstein says. "Often, they're enamored with sophisticated technology that doesn't necessarily make money. It has to be appropriately used and cost-effective." Anderson, whose consulting activities include product design for firms manufacturing particle technology analyzers, adds that when a consultant does his or her job well, the client company's employees often look good, too. "A consultant can make champions or heroes of people by positioning products in the marketplace to a larger advantage," he says. Tom Heinsheimer, vice president of space systems at Titan Systems in Gardena, Calif., has been a client of consultants and serves as a consultant himself; he has been retained by the Planetary Society, the Los Angeles-based concern whose president is Carl Sagan, as a consultant to the French-Soviet Mars mission that is planned for 1994. "Consultants offer expertise at a relatively low cost and get the job off of the payroll," he says. Bill Carson, vice president of the instrument core technology group at Millipore Corp. in Bedford, Mass., uses scientific consultants in the development of new products and application areas. The company, which is a large manufacturer of analytical instrumentation and a developer of biotechnology products, also contracts with consultants to write software, help with engineering design concepts, and teach company personnel how to use software packages. Carson says a consulting arrangement is valuable "when we don't have the time or expertise in-house, and when we want the appearance of a pseudo arm's-length relationship for technical credibility." Consultants serving Techniclone International Corp. in Tustin, Calif., fill needs for advice and equipment that are not available inside the biotechnology company, which develops proprietary therapeutic monoclonal antibodies for lymphoma and several solid tumors and scales up the production of proteins for the marketplace. According to Bob Shaw, vice president and marketing manager, "For a small fee, scientific advisers, mostly from universities, have our best interests at heart. Contract service companies share information about [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] requirements and provide fancy engineering capabilities." Although they may be anxious to build up their client list, scientific consultants frequently find themselves having to refuse assignments. Conflict of interest between clients, whether real or perceived, appears to be the chief reason that consultants turn down projects. Corn, for example, does not work with two direct competitors at the same time, explaining that "the main thing you have going for you is trust." Shamel describes conflict of interest as a "gray area that has to be reviewed with both prospective clients." According to Braeme, "Sometimes you know there's a problem right off the bat, and sometimes you have to look into it." On the other hand, Rothstein believes that consultants can work with two competitors simultaneously as long as they respect the clients' propriety. In addition to rejecting assignments that involve a conflict of interest, Rothstein turns down projects that he does not believe he can do well. In such instances, he has a "black book" of colleagues to whom he refers or subcontracts. Corn does not undertake projects when she thinks that the concept is flawed. Shamel says he avoids projects that the client firm already appears to have decided to abandon and "is looking for a consultant to carry the bad news." Even the firms that are convinced of the value of consultants are judicious about the frequency with which they use the services of contingent workers. Heinsheimer thinks that consultants should be used in moderation, "so that there are not too many to interfere with the management team." Carson does not use consultants when "it requires too much time to bring them up to speed or when the decision is not worth the price tag, as in extensive training programs and marginal projects." Collections appear to be the chief problem for many consultants. The consensus is that it takes between one and three years to start making money, and several months to receive compensation for some projects. Braeme says he has found that the clients who take the longest to pay are those who "don't get the findings they want"; other consultants cite small firms and startups as slow-paying clients. Some consultants, such as Braeme and Anderson, demand a certain percentage of their fees in advance. Corn charges interest. "Beyond that, I scream a lot," she says. Ilene Schneider is a freelance writer based in Irvine, Calif.

Scientific Consulting Offers Independence And Flexibility

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