verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . may 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message waters corporation type public nyse wat s & p 500 component industry life sciences founded 1958 headquarters milford massachusetts united states revenue us 1.90 billion 2013 1 number of employees 5 000 website www.waters.com waters corporation is a publicly traded laboratory analytical instrument and software company headquartered in milford massachusetts . the company employs more than 5 000 people with manufacturing facilities located in milford taunton massachusetts ; wexford ireland ; wilmslow 2 around 13 miles south of manchester england ; and contract manufacturing in singapore . waters markets to the laboratory dependent organization in these market areas liquid chromatography mass spectrometry supercritical fluid chromatography laboratory informatics rheometry and microcalorimetry . contents 1 history 2 products 3 sources of revenue 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit the business was started by james jim logan waters as waters associates in an office in the basement of a police station in framingham massachusetts in 1958 . waters enrolled in the v 12 navy college training program an officer training program and graduated from columbia university as an ensign with a b.s. degree in physics in 1946 . after stints as a university math teacher naval officer project engineer and entrepreneur waters formed waters associates in 1958 . the fledgling firm s first offices were in the rented basement of the framingham mass . police station . during these years waters associates was what is now referred to as a research boutique . companies would contract waters and his five employees to build one of a kind instruments for various purposes . early products included a boiler feedwater flame photometer a balloon hydrometer a nerve gas detector a lab refractometer and process control refractometers . while from its start the company had been self financed with proceeds from an earlier business sale waters opened waters associates to external ownership in 1962 . the company s first major break came when dow chemical bought one of waters first gel permeation chromatography instruments dow chemical made an additional investment of 400 000 . by 1979 dow chemical had attained nearly 25 percent ownership in waters . in 1967 the alc 100 the first waters lc system was brought to market . according to leslie s. ettre in a review about jim waters 1 the lc system was formally introduced at the 1968 pittsburgh conference . it was a benchtop system equipped with a milton roy 3 pump syringe injection and two detectors a waters differential refractometer and a uv detector from the laboratory data control ldc co. in 1969 dimitri d arbeloff then president of millipore corporation joined the corporation s board of directors . millipore s venture capital subsidiary made a 600 000 equity investment in waters . waters next big break came in 1972 when dr. helmut hamberger chief post doc for nobel laureate dr. robert woodward of harvard university sought jim waters help to the first synthesis of vitamin b12 . dr. hamberger wanted to purify the positional isomers which were needed to give him the right compound for the final stages of the synthesis . working with dr. hamberger the pair took two days to develop a separation five more days to obtain larger columns to scale up the separation and three more days to prep his material . in the end the two had isolated and purified 200 mg of the precursor compound . 4 in 1972 waters associates appointed frank zenie president . a year later headquarters moved from framingham to a semi rural 26 acre 110 000 m2 site in milford massachusetts . waters became chairman and continued in that role until the company merged with millipore in 1980 and was rechristened the waters chromatograph division . the sought for synergies between the two companies never materialized however . and in 1993 waters returned to independence under the leadership of chairman president and chief executive officer douglas a. berthiaume . in 1997 waters entered mass spectrometry market with acquisition of micromass for 176 million . on 11 june 2012 waters india celebrated its silver jubilee anniversary in india . 5 products edit waters main product brands include acquity uplc systems acquity upc2 systems xevo mass spectrometry systems synapt ms systems synapt hdms systems xterra hplc columns xbridge columns acquity uplc columns alliance hplc systems empower chromatography and masslynx mass spectrometry software oasis sample preparation products nugenesis lab management system lms . sources of revenue edit a majority of the company s revenue is derived from the life science market a market comprising drug discovery drug development quality control and the emerging sciences of genomics proteomics and biopharmaceuticals . waters products are also sold into the food and beverage environmental fine chemical personal care product university government semiconductor clinical and plastics markets sectors . see also edit laboratory equipment references edit waters . news releases . waters.com . http www.waters.com waters en gb new mass spectrometry facility nav.htm cid 134653003 & locale en gb milton roy . miltonroy.com . mcdonald patrick chemical heritage foundation magazine summer issue 2008 waters india celebrates silver jubilee . 11 june 2012 . leslie s. ettre lcgc north america august 1 2005 mcdonald patrick d. waters corporation fifty years of innovation in analysis and purification chemical heritage 26 2 32 37 2008 external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title waters corporation & oldid 733755212 categories companies listed on the new york stock exchangelife science companies based in massachusettscompanies based in worcester county 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