“What started as a crazy idea 45 years ago has taken us places we never imagined. After working at the Air Forces Rome Air Development Center researching failure mechanics in microelectronics for nine years and then four years at Harris Semiconductor, I felt I had learned a lot about the field of military electronics reliability. I saw a need to make high-end testing services commercially available to help technology industries develop and monitor the production of high-reliability products. I wrote up a plan and went to the bank. I still remember what they first said when I shared my idea. ‘You want how much to do what?’ The rest is history.”

-Tom Rossiter, CEO and Founder

Tom Rossiter
  • 1977

    Tom Rossiter receives funding in Whitesboro, New York to create a new company for measuring reliability in microelectronic products.

    Oneida Research Services, Inc. incorporates in the fall.

  • 1978

    ORS opens for business in a small, leased office space in New Hartford, New York.

    Our first piece of equipment is a $10,000 Texas Instruments desktop calculator that is powerful enough to run a mass spectrometer.

    We purchase a mass spectrometer for internal gas analysis, a scanning electron microscope and a gas chromatography system.

    Our services include product and materials inspection, fire-investigation testing and internal gas analysis for hermetic components.

    Some of our first testing work comes in the emerging field of satellite and pacemaker reliability.

Much like today, our focus early on was performing and continually improving our methods and technology for internal gas analysis testing of all types and sizes of hermetic components, from very tiny cavities to barrels.

In 1983, Finnigan Corporation unveiled a new technology called the Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (or Tandem Mass Spectrometer) that revolutionized the industry with its ability to identify trace chemicals in complex mixtures. ORS was the first independent laboratory to offer these services. By 1985, we had a well-established reputation as a high quality mass spectrometry laboratory, with clients in the chemical, electronics and pharmaceutical industries.

  • 1981

    Fire retardant material
    ORS begins offering testing services for fire arson investigations.

  • 1983

    Triple Quad Machine

    Oneida purchases our first Triple Quad Mass Spectrometer and becomes the first independent lab to offer this technology. Unknowingly, this gives us a great head start in our future pharmaceutical business.

  • 1984

    ORS is awarded the Small Business Administration (SBA) Innovation Award.

  • 1985

    ORS New York office

    ORS builds a new 9,000 square foot facility on Halsey Road in Whitesboro, New York, which we still occupy.

    We hold an open house event on Mother’s Day and display interesting projects including our role in developing a new process to decaffeinate tea.

    We begin developing and improving the Internal Vapor Analyzer (IVA®), a technology for which we will become internationally known in the years ahead.

    We begin offering Destructive Product Analysis (DPA) services, an inspection program utilized by the aerospace and terrestrial military industries to detect construction deviations and prevent non-functional components from ever reaching the assembly phase.

  • 1988

    ORS' single volume calibrator invention

    ORS invents the single volume calibrator to replace the antiquated 3-volume calibrator system. Our innovations enhance the precision of the gas injections.

    Oneida’s pharmaceutical wing moves into a new 49,000 square foot laboratory building to accommodate our growing staff and space needs.

  • 1989

    We begin our venture in pharmaceutical services using tandem mass spectrometry to identify the chemical structure and purity of new drug compounds.

 

Oneida’s pharmaceutical wing moves into its new building to accommodate its growing staff and space needs.

Prevalere Life Sciences is created as a standalone entity apart from Oneida Research Labs.

Prevalere is sold to ICON, which continues to operate to this day in the same facility.

2008

1988

2005

Pharmaceutical Division

For years, ORS operated as two businesses, one focused on microelectronics and another focused on pharmaceuticals.
ORS-40th-slider-flagORS-40th-slider-flagORS-40th-slider-flag

 

In the 1990s, we pioneered new leak-detection technologies, expanded into European markets, and began to advance methods for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) compliance for the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry. At this point, we essentially had two businesses with two separate cultures, one for military electronics testing and one for FDA compliance testing. The pharmaceutical business began to dominate the company during this period, requiring ever-increasing investment to keep pace with new developments in mass spectrometry and increasing demand.

  • 1990

    ORS begins to accelerate our pharmaceutical testing services, which will soon become the largest part of the company. Our early entry into GC Tandem Mass Spectrometry puts us in a leadership position to take advantage of newer advances in HPLC Tandem Mass Spectrometry.

    We begin doing studies to monitor how developmental drugs behave in patients to support the FDA approval of our clients’ new drugs.

  • 1991

    We participate in the FDA approval of one of the first AIDS drugs to hit the market along with other notable drugs.

  • 1993

    Ampoule being tested

    ORS pioneers Ampoule Testing and Leak Site Identification to address the industry’s interest in understanding and reducing sources of hydrogen inside critical electronic components. Using proprietary methodologies, we quickly become a major contributor to identifying materials and processes that create hydrogen inside hermetic devices.

  • 1995

    European Expansion
    French and European flags
    ORS starts its European division, opening an office near Nice, France to serve clients across Europe and the U.K.

  • 1998

    ORS develops and begins offering two proprietary methods for testing hermeticity and identifying leaks in sealed containers.

In the 2000s, we got involved with biotechnology, launched new testing products and began selling testing equipment for the first time. By 2005, the pharmaceutical business was growing faster than we could support it. When the need for continued investment began to exceed the resources of our size, we sold off this division of the company and returned our focus to testing microelectronic components.

  • 2000

    We enter the biotechnology market, which gives us the ability to test large molecule and small molecule pharmaceutical compounds.

  • 2004

    JEDEC logoORS joins JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, an independent semiconductor engineering trade organization and standardization body whose more than 300 members include some of the world’s largest computer companies.

  • 2005

    Prevalere logo

    We spin the pharmaceutical business off from ORS into a new company we name Prevalere Life Sciences, Inc. Three years later, we sell Prevalere to ICON plc, which continues to operate to this day in the facility we still own in Whitesboro, NY.

The 2010s brought continued growth. We expanded our offerings to include Krypton 85 testing and advanced HSHLD® testing. We also opened up for business in Denver, Colorado and acquired long-time partner Silicon Cert in Reading, PA.

  • 2011

    Westward Expansion

    ORS Colorado OfficeOneida expanded to Colorado in 2011 in order to better serve clients in the Rocky Mountain region.

  • 2012

    Large scale CT scanner

    We purchase our first large-scale X-ray machine as well as Krypton 85 testing equipment for our Rocky Mountain office.

  • 2013

    Oneida develops HSHLD®, a new approach to leak testing in hermetic containers, which proves very useful in pacemakers and other devices that are susceptible to failure.

  • 2018

    Silicon Cert Laboratories logo

    ORS purchases Silicon Cert in Reading, PA. to expand our scope of services. Silicon Cert provides stress tests and other environmental testing for electronics that complement our existing services.

  • 2020

    ORS manufactures the Delta-P Model 410 for companies that want to perform on-site getter qualification and lot conformance testing.

  • 2021

    ORS purchases the Internal Gas Analysis (IGA) division of Atlantic Analytical Laboratory (AAL). This acquisition supports ORS’s global vision to expand its hermetic package gas analysis business and complements its proprietary Internal Vapor Analysis (IVA®) technology.

2021 and beyond!

Dan Rossiter

“Tom has always led by example. I think that’s why we haven’t lost sight of the hard work and drive that got us where we are today. We are excited to continue our tradition of innovation at ORS Labs. As we mark the occasion of our 45th anniversary, we remain as committed as ever to breaking new ground and setting new standards for testing excellence.”

-Daniel Rossiter, Senior Vice President

ORS continues to offer state-of-the-art testing services and expertise to the aerospace, automotive, defense, medical, microelectronics and telecommunications industries.