My First Industrial Job was for Chemagro Corporation in 1964

Group Photo of the Research Department in 1964. I was #36 in the group photo.

My first industrial job after finishing my Ph.D from the University of Illinois was for Chemagro Corp in Kansas City, Missouri. My title was Chemist in the methods Development group( Biochemistry) headed by Dr. Charles Anderson ( Chuck). My primary duty was to develop methods for the detection of pesticides residues in plant and animal tissues. My work for five years( 1964-1969) resulted in several publications on the subject of analytical methods for pesticide residues in a couple of scientific journals. I enjoyed my first job very much because of my fellow employees and my supervisor, Dr Anderson.

Chemagro sponsored me for my permanent resident visa from a student visa. Looking at the group photo above, I now realized I was the first Filipino scientist hired by the company. There were 40 employees in the research Department mostly white men. There were only six women and no black scientist in our department. I was very proud to be the only Asian hired by the company for several years. As a matter of fact my photo with two other white chemists was published in the Kansas City Star as an advertising for the company.

Photo Taken in 1967

Here's the latest information about Chemagro from the Internet: Chemagro is now called Bayer CropScience, LP.

The Bayer Crop Science site is located on about 236 acres at 8400 Hawthorne Road in North Kansas City, Missouri, approximately 1.5 miles south of the confluence of the Missouri and Blue rivers. The facility occupies about 150 acres of the site and is protected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ East Bottom Flood Levee. The remaining property is undeveloped land lying outside the Levee (river side of the Levee).

Before 1956, the property was farmland. In 1956, the facility opened as an agricultural chemical manufacturing facility, known as Chemagro, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer A.G. in 1967. In 1971, the facility came under control of the Mobay Chemical Corp. as a result of the merger and restructuring of various U.S. businesses affiliated with Bayer A.G. Over the years the facility formulated and produced numerous insecticides, fungicides and herbicides for agricultural use, including guthion (azinphosmethyl), disulfoton (Disyston), fenthion (Baytex), demeton (Systox), coumaphos (Baymix) and Meta-Systox-R.

A variety of hazardous wastes were produced as part of the facility operations. From 1959 to 1973, approximately 7,450 tons of material was land disposed in three areas at the facility where trenches were reportedly dug. This material consisted of about 6,902 tons of Filter Aid (a semi-solid paste that remains after pesticide recovery), 16 tons of ethyl phosphoro-triesters with toluene, 500 tons of methyl phosphoro-triesters with naphthol spirit and 30 tons of DEF water treatment residue (polyphosphates of tri-n-butyl thioester phosphates). After the final placement of these materials, the areas were covered with a layer of dirt and then gravel or grass.

Since 1979, the facility has operated two hazardous waste container storage areas in the south-central part of the facility, with a combined capacity of 12,375 gallons; four 27,000-gallon hazardous waste storage tanks and one hazardous waste incinerator. In January 1992, the facility name changed to Miles Inc., and in April 1995 the name changed to Bayer Corp., Agricultural Division. These were not changes in ownership or operating responsibility, but changes in company name only. In 2002, Bayer CropScience LP assumed ownership of the site.

On Aug. 10, 2015, the department approved Bayer’s Class 2 Permit Modification request, allowing Bayer to, among other things, add a new 24,000-gallon capacity permitted hazardous waste storage tank and to increase the secondary containment capacity of container Storage Pad No. 2 in order to store larger-sized containers. Bayer continues to produce and package insecticides, seed treatments, herbicides and fungicides for crop protection. Bayer stores and incinerates hazardous waste created during the on-site production processes and hazardous waste from Bayer’s satellite and sister facilities and Bayer-contracted formulators.

This facility is not a commercial waste management facility, since the wastes are limited to Bayer or Bayer contractor produced wastes. Bayer also arranges for off-site treatment and disposal of waste that can not be treated in the incinerator.