Posts Tagged ‘Charles W. Gehrke’

Websites

Posted in Charles W. Gehrke, Columbia and Boone County Historic Homes, tagged , , , , , on July 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

This website, diannaobrien.com, highlights examples of my work as a reporter.

charleswgehrke.com focuses on the book I wrote with Charles W. Gehrke, one of the founders of ABC Labs. Founded in 1968, today, the company is one of Columbia’s largest employers and one of the anchor tenants in the newest research park, Discovery Ridge.

columbiahistoricplaces.com highlights information on historic places in Columbia and Boone County, Missouri. The website includes information on buildings and places named to Columbia’s Most Notable Properties List as well as those on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Measuring Worth

Posted in Charles W. Gehrke, Resources, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Measuringworth.com is a web site where you can use a variety of calculators to determine how much something was worth historically.

For example, in the book I’m wrote with Charles W. Gehrke before his death about his life, his career and his accomplishments, he told me he’d raised roughly $200,000 to get what is now called ABC Labs going in 1968. Naturally, I wondered first how he did that — that answer is in the book, “From the Melon Fields to the Moon,” to be published.

Then, I wondered how much $200,000 would be worth today. That answer I found at measuringworth.com, using one of their calculators to determine the value of currency at various time periods.

The answer is $200,000 in 1968 would have been worth roughly $1.1 million in 2007 dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com.

A tool like measuringworth.com can help a reporter provide context to an article or a book.  And that, in my opinion, is one of the jobs journalists are supposed to do: provide context to help make the world understandable to readers.

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Update – Charles W. Gehrke

Posted in Charles W. Gehrke, tagged , , , on November 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

At last, a draft of the book written about Charles W. Gehrke is complete. Charles and I had been working on the book since early spring of 2007 and thankfully I had most of the information I needed to complete the book before he passed away on February 10, 2009. But it was difficult to proceed without his input.

However, even after his passing, Charles provided everything I needed — he’d saved boxes of files and his daughter Susan Gehrke Isaacson and Jon Gehrke were very generous is allowing me to pour over all the documents Charles had saved. I found handwritten notes covering one of the toughest times in his life, the 1991-1992 struggles at ABC Labs.

Now, I start another part of the journey toward making the book Charles and I envisioned a reality — finding a publisher. I am optimistic it won’t be long before the book, “From the Melon Fields to the Moon,” will be in print.

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Charles W. Gehrke

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

For more than a year, I’ve been doing a different kind of journalism; working with Charles W. Gehrke writing a book about his life and his times. While his name might not be a household word, his work is basic to something we take for granted: there is no lif e on the moon. Before Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, there were concerns that there might be life on the moon and bringing back moon samples could lead to epidemics from microbes to which we had no immunity. A NASA news release from 1968 outlines the precautions taken to ensure if there was life on the moon, any pathogens would be contained so the Earth wouldn’t be contaminated.

But once Charles analyzed the moon samples brought back, it was certain there was no life on the moon.

How could he be so certain? Charles had been doing groundbreaking work using gas liquid chromatography to detect amino acids in agricultural products such as wheat and soil samples. His peer-reviewed publications showed he could analyze samples for amino acids with a confidence level significantly greater than that required by NASA.

That’s why Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma tapped him to be a co-investigator to analyze the moon samples when they were brought back from the July 20, 1969 moon landing by Apollo.

So, without Charles’ work, we might still be wondering if there was life on the moon. But he’ll tell you with an exclamation mark included, there are no life molecules on the moon!

Thanks, Charles.

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