The Chemist who learned Pyro

On September 1, 1989 I began my employment at Purdue University. My official title on the contract is Director of Lecture Demonstrations. I enjoy telling that to people when they ask what I do because 99.5 percent still have no idea after hearing the title. As is the case many times, job's titles really are not that significant or explanatory. This job has several duties but a couple  key ones are in preparation of  live chemistry demonstrations for the professors to demonstrate in their lectures.
My interest in fireworks and pyrotechnics began as I entered Junior High School.
I always really enjoyed firework displays, read about and watched a great deal of the space program especially the Apollo program to the moon. I bought my first rocket kits from Century and Estes during those years. Along with my cousins who had a large scale rocket I successfully launched a live mouse hundreds of feet in the air. I had caught him in a storage shed and after his successful flight gave him his freedom at the farm we used as a launch site.
I pursued my pyrotechnic interests as I studied science and then chemistry through high school and college. While I still was interested in pyrotechnics it was quite a few years later when I got my current job at Purdue in 1989 that I really began to expand my understanding and involvement in this area.
My job focused on helping the faculty to present live demonstrations of the chemistry principles they were teaching the students. I often heard the students request to have demonstrations involving fire and explosions. I soon realized that the more I knew about fireworks and pyrotechnics the better prepared I would be to provide demonstrations that exploded or went up in flame. Soon thereafter I went to a seminar about pyrotechnics and heard about the PGI. At that same time I found a local firework display company and joined up with them doing public displays. Later as I got more involved and heard about manufacturing I sent in my info for an ATF license and got that approved.

My first PGI convention was in 2000 and I signed up with the safety team and helped out on the B-line. I really enjoyed helping and watching people launch their shells and took over the role of B-line Boss from a great mentor Dave Pierson. I  continue to assist the new B-line Boss as I serve on the PGI Board holding the office of First Vice President.  This summer my first term will conclude and I am currently running for election to another two year term.

La Porte Convention in review

The first PGI convention in Indiana in over 20 years was a great event.. The 2012 "Fire in the Sky" La Porte, IN convention was successful in many ways.  Attendance was up for the members and good crowds came to all the public displays.  We had a huge group of the members camping and they reported it was a great site for those who camped.

I was able to have my wife, my parents and some extended family attend the Friday night Grand Public Display which was great fun.  They have heard me talk about this for years and now they saw first hand I was not making things up.

An Economic study was done and found that our convention brought 2-3 million dollars of revenue into the La Porte area.  Many of the members told of being thanked by local business personnel of how this was really helping them financially because of our presence and patronage.

The mayor and the committee are very eager for us to return and we will work on a potential return to La Porte County Fairgrounds.  The Fairgrounds know we need more space and are exploring options on how our footprint can be expanded to give us the  necessary distances.  Things have changed to the north in the open shooting area with the building of another inhabited building back there.

I really enjoyed working with the folks at the La Porte County Fairgrounds and the local Convention Visitors Bureau.  They worked hard to make us welcome and helped on a variety issues that come along with doing a pyrotechnic convention at a new site.

We are tentatively scheduled to return to LaPorte in 2016 so there is time to work on making adjustments and improvements so our return visit is an even better time than 2012.