Founded in 1972, Particle Measuring Systems (PMS) celebrates its 45 year anniversary this month. Dr. Robert Knollenberg founded the company shortly after inventing the world’s first laser particle counter. Since then, PMS has continued the course of being first when it comes to engineering new particle counters, including the recent Chem20™ — the world’s only 20 nm chemical particle counter.

PMS started building instrumentation that flew on the wings of aircraft to study the atmosphere, then applied its technology to cleanroom applications, first focused largely on micro-electronic manufacturing. The sensitivity leading products enabled industry advances in cleanliness and smaller feature sizes. In 2000 the company made the decision to expand into life sciences, which is now a very significant part of the business. While the name "Particle Measuring Systems" is a nod to its start as a particle counting company, PMS now also provides microbial and molecular monitors as well as complete services including consulting, GMP, and training.

"We started out as a small business in a garage and have expanded to several hundreds of employees, with almost two-thirds outside the U.S., over 35 distributors, and local sales and services in more than 70 countries, with over 60 patents," said John Mitchell, President of PMS. He continued, "While our growth has been both organic and through acquisitions, what has set us apart is our commitment to adding value to our customers and improving their performance. Our values of absolute integrity, restless innovation, empowerment, customer focus and high performance enable our success."