Thirty Years Young

Daniela Held is marketing and sales manager and has been with PSS since 2000. She feels that her reasons for joining – and staying – with the company are echoed throughout its staff. “I decided that I wanted to be part of a smaller company; and PSS offered me a better opportunity to develop myself. I already knew that they were not just trying to make as much money as possible – they wanted to make something long lasting, which focuses more on people than money. Of course, we need money to make a living, but many people feel more strongly about making a difference.”

Daniela Held is marketing and sales manager and has been with PSS since 2000. She feels that her reasons for joining – and staying – with the company are echoed throughout its staff. “I decided that I wanted to be part of a smaller company; and PSS offered me a better opportunity to develop myself. I already knew that they were not just trying to make as much money as possible – they wanted to make something long lasting, which focuses more on people than money. Of course, we need money to make a living, but many people feel more strongly about making a difference.”

Going back 30 years, PSS started out as a spin off set up by two PhD students from the University of Mainz. They began by producing synthetic polymers with special properties and subsequently expanded the product portfolio over time to today’s offering: all supplies and services for the analysis of macromolecules with liquid chromatography.

CSR at its core

Corporate social responsibility at a small company tends to be a much more personal endeavour, and PSS is no different. “CSR is very important to all the founders and owners; all of whom are still working at the company. It gives PSS the freedom to create the perfect framework to support employees who really believe in what we are doing as a company,” says Held. And she believes that if people are happy in their positions, they can, in turn, better support customers and collaborators. “We often say that we are passionate about macromolecule characterization – and I think that is what sets us apart. We really believe that what we do helps others to develop better products to, for example, find new cures for diseases and provide other benefits to humanity.”

Moreover, a small company with passionate and well-supported employees doesn’t need to waste time and energy on negativity, instead finding time to be charitable. Held says, “We are involved in many charity projects. Most of them are projects that the company owners are involved in; for example, PSS supports orphanages in Africa and Romania. Actually, we do not spend money on Christmas cards or gifts for our customers each year – instead, we donate extra money to charity projects.”

The importance of being educated

What especially comes across from the people at PSS is their passion for education at all levels. From fully supporting the German dual-education system, to offering work experience to school children, to providing training to analytical labs in Africa, PSS are trying to spread the word about the importance of macromolecule analysis and analytical chemistry in general.

And given the complicated nature of the field, PSS are all too aware that excellent training is absolutely essential inside the company to make good on its promises to promote knowledge about macromolecules. Daniela says, “Because our subject is so specialized, we’re not able to employ fully-trained people from universities; instead, we seek the right personalities for the company and give them training on the job, so that they can understand macromolecules and pass on that knowledge to our clients. There are no easy answers in analytics. And there is no easy way to find the right people – it requires time, training and passion!”

PSS is a relatively young company with a mature – even unusually philanthropic – philosophy. “We don’t want to make millions of Euros in the next five years. We just want to grow the company organically at the rate we can find and train good people so that we can support more people worldwide,” says Daniela. “After all, the market for macromolecules is increasing but knowledge about macromolecules is decreasing. And we want to do our best to help.”