Category Archives: Eigenvector News

The 2014-15 ski season wrapped up at Mission Ridge on April 9-12 with the Eigenvector Research NW Cup Finals. It was a great four days which included two days of Giant Slalom (GS) races and two days of Slalom (SL) races, plus a bonus Dual Slalom on the final afternoon. Mission Ridge Ski Team (MRST) athletes had an awesome weekend winning 8 out of the 10 races along with many other podium finishes. Victories were captured by Lindsey Ahmann (GS1, SL1), Hannah Bodily (GS2, SL2 and the Dual SL) and Brian Davidson (GS1, GS2 and the Dual SL). There were also numerous other podium appearances including 2 each from Max Tobler and Gunnar Lundteigen. Plus Max Tobler, who also coaches young skiers for MRST, captured the overall NW Cup title based on his performance over the whole season. Max can be seen ripping up the Dual SL course. (Thanks to Brian Platt and SkiRacePhoto.com for the great shot!)

With all the possible things that a company might sponsor, why ski racing? Well, anybody who knows me very well knows that I just love skiing and ski racing in particular. Although I’ve skied since I was five, I got a late start at racing and really didn’t get serious about it until after I graduated from undergrad. I never got enough of it and still compete when I can squeeze it into the schedule. And of course we raised two ski racing daughters, with one still racing and one coaching, so we’ve had something of a vested interest.

But we’re happy to support ski racing because, like most sports, it is good for kids. The youngest kids learn to be on time, keep track of their gear, be good sports, work on their conditioning, etc. As they get older and more time and travel is involved, athletes learn time management so they can keep up their studies and get their ski prep work done in addition to the time they spend on the hill and in the gym. They learn about living with teammates and sharing work duties like meal prep and clean up. Plus it promotes an appreciation of nature and love of the outdoors.

But beyond that, ski racing combines speed, athleticism, skill and mental toughness like no other sport. Strength and conditioning are key, but they don’t guarantee success. To be fast, ski racers must learn techniques that at first seem awkward and, well, dangerous. Example: getting pressure on the new ski at the TOP of the turn. To do this requires skill and confidence. You have to believe it is going to work, and if you don’t believe it, it won’t. When they are in the start gate ski racers have to believe that they can execute their plan in spite of often sub-optimal course and weather conditions, all at 40+ mph.

In short, ski racing teaches a great work ethic and instills confidence. It turns good kids into great young adults. And that’s why Eigenvector is proud to sponsor the Mission Ridge Ski Team and NW Cup Finals.

BMW

This spring I was contacted by Holly Thorpe of the Wenatchee Valley Business World about doing a piece on Eigenvector. I was, of course, pleased to oblige! The timing was especially good as we celebrated our 20th Anniversary earlier this year. The resulting article captures the flavor of EVRI quite well, and is a great layperson’s introduction to the type of work we do.

Our thanks go to Holly for the article and photographer Don Seabrook for capturing my work environment. (My daughter commented that she had never seen my office that clean!) I really enjoyed the process–I always get really enthusiastic when I start talking about Eigenvector!

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Eigenvector Research, Inc. (aka EVRI) passed a significant milestone when we turned 20 years old on January 1, 2015. The event passed without a lot of fanfare around here. Frankly we were just all a little bit too busy to do much beyond offering a few internal congratulations!

Eigenvector was founded on January 1, 1995 when Neal Gallagher and I used our credit cards to buy computers and office furniture. Neal was living with us in West Richland, WA, and that became our first offices. Our original plan was that we would be primarily a consulting company and also continue to develop our MATLAB-based PLS_Toolbox. Our first two consulting projects were for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) where we had both been employed. The first involved development of models based on FTIR spectroscopy to estimate the organic gas content and ozone forming potential of automobile exhaust. The second was analysis of the behavior of waste tank SY-101, Hanford’s notorious “burping” tank.

We soon discovered that there was a significant demand for chemometrics courses. The field was relatively new and lots of companies wanted to take advantage of the possibilities that multivariate analysis opened up. I had taught a chemometrics course at the Joint Center for Graduate Study, (now Washington State University Tri-Cities), and was happy to take it on the road. Thus we became the three-legged stool that we are today, providing chemometric software, consulting and training.

In 2001 we made the first addition to our technical staff with Jeremy M. Shaver, now our Chief of Technology Development. This was possibly the best decision we’ve ever made. Under Jeremy’s stewardship PLS_Toolbox has developed into the user-friendly and comprehensive package that it is today. Plus we’ve added our stand-alone Solo, tools for Multivariate Image Analysis, and on-line predictor packages Solo_Predictor and Model_Exporter.

Our software sales have grown continuously for more than a decade and now comprise the largest third of our business. We now have 2500+ users in more than 1000 companies and universities across 50+ countries.

We joke sometimes that we founded EVRI because life is too short to drink bad beer, do boring work or live in a crappy place. But there’s an element of truth in that. We’ve gotten to work on some fascinating projects over the last 20 years. Some frustrating ones as well, but on average pretty interesting stuff. We’d like to think we’ve done some good in that we’ve trained a lot of chemometricians, provided tools that make their work easier, and advanced projects that have made processes more efficient and benefited consumers and patients.

We look forward to continued growth and more stimulating projects over the next 20 years!

BMW

The Eigenvector staff is pretty spread out geographically. We have people in four cities in Washington, plus folks in Indiana and North Carolina. And then there’s our Associate Rasmus Bro in Denmark. So we don’t get together, other than virtually, very often. Generally we’re only together at Eigenvector University each spring in Seattle. But we’re so busy during that time that we don’t get to talk to each other much.

This July we remedied that by having our first ever Eigenvector Summit. We got together for a week in Manson on Lake Chelan where we discussed the future of Eigenvector’s efforts in software, training and consulting. Plus we had some great food and beverages, did a few tourist activities, visited some local hangouts, went out on the lake and, most importantly, enjoyed each other’s company.

The EVRI developers are pictured above. Left to right are R. Scott Koch, Randy Bishop, Bob Roginski, Barry Wise, Donal O’Sullivan, Jeremy Shaver and Neal Gallagher with Rasmus Bro reclining. For a few more pictures from the Summit, see Scott’s slide show.

As is typical when we get together, we never ran out of things to talk about and try. The guys were often around the dining room table with their laptops writing demo code or pointing each other at new journal references. Other times we were out by the lake just brainstorming. (Thanks, Bob, for taking the notes!) And while I won’t reveal what we came up with, we expect that Eigenvector Summit 2013 will pay dividends for our users, students and clients in the years that come.

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2012 is in the books and it was another good year for EVRI. Once again our year-over-year software sales were up. The end of the year was especially good. November was our best software sales month ever until December, which was better still! We move into 2013, our 19th year, with a renewed sense of momentum.

In 2013 we’ll continue to build on the unique features of our software. As always, improvements and additions are driven by the combination of customer requests, our own needs for consulting projects, and interesting developments in the field of chemometrics. We will continue to release two major updates a year (spring and fall) and minor updates as required. Updates are free to users with active maintenance agreements. Software support continues to be a top priority, and we have extended the hours of coverage for our e-mail based HelpDesk@Eigenvector.com, now 6am to midnight Eastern Time, Monday-Friday, (with additional checks on weekends).

Software improvements planned for 2013 include:

• Methods to help automate the model building process in PLS_Toolbox and Solo
• Automatic evaluation of different model types and preprocessing schemes
• Improvements to Solo_Predictor for on-line analysis, including expansion of the number of ways to communicate with other software and instruments
• Compatibility with more instruments from more manufacturers, more Technology Partners

Our training efforts will continue unabated in 2013, with our 8th annual Eigenvector University planned for May 12-17. You’ll also find our courses at numerous conference sites. Our EigenU Online classes will be expanded, with classes on Clustering and Classification and Multivariate Image Analysis coming this Spring. And of course we’ll continue to add to our bank of EigenGuide Videos demonstrating use of our software.

EVRI’s staff of consultants and software developers, with a combined 100+ man-years of chemometrics experience, will continue assisting clients both domestically and internationally.

We look forward to working with you in 2013!

BMW

Megan Kogut, Ph.D., joined our staff last month as our new Director of Strategic Communications. Like many of her fellow Eigenvectorians, Megan comes with a unique and distinctive set of qualifications.

Dr. Kogut received her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002. Since then she’s held several positions, including lecturer at University of Washington‘s Tacoma campus, and Environmental Quality Unit Manager at UW Seattle. Through these positions, Megan discovered that she really liked the communication aspects of her job. “For me, writing flyers and newsletter articles is like tightrope walking, balancing detail, enthusiasm and humor. And, I love connecting people through email and on the phone. I have done this professionally and as a hobby for the last ten years or more.”

Megan also noted that EVRI appealed to her scientific side. “I love data analysis and interpretation, especially in situations with many variables. Usually, research of the environment involves isolating natural processes as much as possible without ignoring important inputs or influences. Many scientists struggle with oversimplification, and some just cheerfully throw a rock at their subject without even acknowledging all the variables.” To that we say, “Amen!”

We’re excited about having a new member of our team, and confident our customers will benefit from having a staff member dedicated to getting our message out.

Welcome Megan!

BMW