The Boulder Scientific Company (BSC) has completed several investments for its manufacturing facilities in Longmont and Mead. The company produces specialty chemicals that are used in multiple industries internationally, including plastics, microelectronics, defense, and aerospace. BSC CEO Rich Preziotti told the Longmont Leader that between 10 and 15 positions will be added across the two facilities.
Preziotti said that the new positions within BSC will be across areas that include engineering, onsite support in our clean room, and warehouse facilities. “The majority of jobs are in production (operators do not require prior chemical experience) and support functions such as quality (also no prior chemical experience), as well as analytical chemists — who require a bachelors’ degree in chemistry and prior analytical lab experience,” he said.
The company’s analytical lab has a new clean room to “enable detection of trace metals to the parts per billion level.” According to a press release from the company published on March 13, “BSC has commissioned additional low volume and commercial scale purification and distillation equipment to meet very low trace metal specifications required in metal precursors used in semiconductor chip fabrication.”
The CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law in 2022 by President Joe Biden in order to encourage and increase domestic production of semiconductors, which are used in electronics, automobiles, appliances, and more. In 2023, almost 1 trillion units were sold globally, which equates to more than 100 per person on earth. Global sales were valued at $527 billion in 2023 and the industry is expected to continue growing.
The Longmont facility has “expanded multi-purpose synthesis capacity by 20 percent,” which “enables the production of a novel silane polymer which will be used by customers to manufacture advanced composite parts for aerospace applications.”
Jim Giolitto, BSC’s Chief Commercial Officer, said the investments will help prevent potential supply chain disruptions. “Manufacturing organometallics in the U.S. helps reduce the risk of supply disruptions that could occur due to geopolitical concerns and shifts in regulatory policies,” Giolitto said. “Boulder Scientific is one of the few organometallic material manufacturers in North America at scale not affiliated with a tier one supplier to semiconductor chip manufacturers.”
Preziotti said that BSC is dedicated to safety protocols while dealing with specialty chemicals. The company was the 2024 recipient of the The Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates’ (SOCMA) Safety Recognition Program.
“Boulder Scientific maintains a safety-first culture that includes rigorous and detailed testing of our processes,” Preziotti said. “A dedicated process safety group tests for chemical hazards using an array of equipment including RC1, DSC, TGA, and Arc Spectrometer. From a process safety perspective, our process safety group works with research and development to ensure new processes are well understood and can be safely run in our manufacturing plant – with a focus on preventing releases of chemicals to ensure worker safety and no harm to the environment.”
