Galbraith Chemical Laboratory History

In 1950, Dr. Harry Galbraith established Galbraith Laboratories, Inc. in Knoxville, Tennessee, as an independent analytical testing laboratory. Initially, Dr. Galbraith offered Carbon, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen testing, marketed to the academic world. Today, as then, colleges and universities throughout the U.S. continue to call on Galbraith to handle their analytical testing needs.

From those early, modest beginnings, Galbraith has grown into a multi-million dollar company, with a staff of 70 and five laboratory departments on campus:

• CHNOS
• Metals
• Halogens
• Wet Chemistry
• Chromatography

A founding philosophy, which continues today, is to invest capital in the latest technology to best serve the needs of our customers. Galbraith’s current instrumentation is highlighted under the Analytical Techniques section on the Home page.

The Company’s strength and character lie within the community called Galbraith Laboratories: It is about the commitment and responsibility the employees have to one another, our clients, and the general welfare of our Company.

Development of a Specialty Support Laboratory

The planning and decision-making framework at GLI has evolved and built on itself as follows:

• Entrepreneurial leadership
• Centralized executive management by officer(s)
• Departmentalization of production
• Production supervision
• Decentralization of executive management
• Distributive management