Born in a Bellefonte garage in 1966, the Supelco brand celebrates 60 years of innovation, customer service, and commitment to its community
Sixty years ago, two Penn State graduates, Walt Supina and Nick Pelick, launched Supelco, a Bellefonte-based scientific supply company that focused on their area of expertise — developing and manufacturing chemicals and products for gas chromatography, a recently established method of separating and analyzing organic chemicals.
History
Supelco opened for business on Oct. 6, 1966, in a 1,500-square-foot garage on Water Street, with a workforce of four — the founders and two additional employees, Lew Rose and Gary Walker, who all left their positions at Applied Science Laboratories in State College to join the new company.
“They took the Sup and the Pel from their names, and added Company, and came up with the word Supelco,” says the current site director, Duane Funk.
A 1967 quote by Nick Pelick, enshrined on the huge timeline in the company’s central hallway, captured Supelco’s approach to quality and customer service: “We made every effort to show the customer that we gave a damn. … We would never sell products that were inferior. … We never compromised.”
Funk says, “We’re now part of MilliporeSigma, but the Supelco name lives on as a brand. Like name brands you may find in your home, Supelco has strong recognition in the analytical chemistry world.”
From the beginning, Supina and Pelick decided to focus on catalog sales and marketing through Barash Advertising instead of hiring a large force of salespeople to visit prospective customers. The first Supelco catalog, Fall 1967, offered their line of materials for gas chromatography, thin layer chromatography, high purity lipids research, and “several new products never before offered by anyone.”
A note on the bottom of the cover says, “If it happens that you don’t see what you need, please feel free to call us. Supelco has imagination and know-how working for you … make use of it.”
The company prospered. After three years in the Water Street garage, Supina and Pelick bought the current 72-acre property at 595 N. Harrison Road in Bellefonte, across the street from CPI (the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology). They built a 10,000-square-foot facility and rented the surrounding land to a farmer. After three more additions in 1975, 1979, and 1989, the building grew to 155,000 square feet.
To keep up with growth, Supelco added employees, including glassblowers and machine shop employees to make product components in-house; production technicians to assemble products; and engineers, chemists, and biologists to work in quality control and research and development. Marketing employees were also added to the company’s growing workforce.
The current workforce of 125 employees includes these jobs and more.
“[We have] a lot of different teams, including product management, QA [quality assurance], QC [quality control], R&D [research and development], production, the warehouse. And everyone is always more than happy to help with any inquiry I have,” says Funk. “Good team atmosphere. It’s almost like a family, in a way. A lot of good ideas. And we’re always working on something new and innovative.”
The Bellefonte site also supplements in-house skills by working with local machinists and contracting with the Skills program for box assembly.
Funk says the company has to have tightly controlled manufacturing processes and strict specifications. The columns are filled with particles that are coated, cleaned, or otherwise modified.
“For HPLC [high-performance liquid chromatography] and gas chromatography columns, we test 100% of them before they go out. That way, the customer receives a tested column, and we know it works before it reaches them.”
Chromatography uses the principle that different substances in a mixture can travel through a specially engineered chromatography column at different rates when carried along in a specific gas or liquid. This allows the substances to be separated and analyzed. The columns need to be made consistently so they produce identical results.
Major Product Lines
The Bellefonte site no longer manufactures chemicals and currently focuses on separations and chromatography. That focus on chromatography dates back to the company’s earliest days. Supelco began manufacturing gas chromatography (GC) columns when the company opened for business in 1966.
As the company expanded, its product lines did as well. The next product line was carbon technology, used by NASA to collect and concentrate atmospheric gases for measurement during several missions: Voyager 1 in 1977 (to the outer solar system and interstellar space), Galileo in 1989 (to Jupiter), and Cassini-Huygens in 1997 (to Saturn’s rings).
Supelco continued to expand its chromatography offerings in the years that followed. The company added the HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography) line of products in 1979. Four years later, in 1983, Supelco added its air monitoring product line to measure contaminants in the air.
The most recent product line is sample preparation. Funk says, “We introduced it in 1985, and it has continued to grow. In fact, it has been one of our biggest growth areas. Sample preparation helps clean up a sample before it is injected into a GC or HPLC, which helps extend the life of the columns.
“Pesticide testing is important because we need safe food to eat, safe water to drink, and safe places for our kids to play. We want to make sure that our food and soil are not contaminated. Customers analyze pesticide levels in the foods we consume so we can help protect our families and communities.”
He says it can be really tricky to analyze for pesticides, and one of their products, QuEChERS, is a quick, simple, and cheap way of analyzing for pesticides in food.
“QuEChERS stands for quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe,” Funk says. “For chemists conducting pesticide testing, it helps make the process easier, faster, and more efficient. Customers choose our products because Supelco is well known within the industry. Our products are reliable and high quality, and we provide strong customer service.”
Customer Sectors Served
MilliporeSigma supplies Supelco analytical products to customers in a variety of industries and research fields, including food and beverage manufacturing, flavor and fragrance production, environmental testing, agricultural science, industrial research, and health research.
Company Ownership
The company’s ownership has changed over time. The founders sold Supelco to Rohm and Haas, a science company based in Philadelphia, in 1987. Supelco was acquired by Sigma-Aldrich in 1993, and Sigma-Aldrich was acquired by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2015.
Funk says the life science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, including Supelco analytical products, operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada to prevent confusion with the U.S.-based Merck company. MilliporeSigma and Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, share the same mark, the Vibrant M.
Community Outreach
MilliporeSigma, including the Bellefonte site, supports local schools directly by donating funds and older scientific equipment that has been replaced with newer versions.
For a decade, MilliporeSigma has actively focused on outreach to students through the SPARK™ Mobilizing Employee Volunteers to Help Inspire the Next Generation in STEM initiative.
Locally, female scientists from the Bellefonte site lead Discovery Space programs focused on women in STEM, and costumed employees participate in the State College YMCA Trunk or Treat event.
Funk says one of MilliporeSigma’s biggest community outreach programs is the Curiosity Cube, a mobile science education lab for ages 8 to 13 that travels to schools, summer camps, and public spaces. The Cube features interactive science experiments led by employee volunteers and focuses on reaching students who may not have access to hands-on STEM activities.
The 2026 experiments focused on unlocking enzyme power, understanding DNA, and gene activation in synthetic biology.
“We want to inspire young students by showing them that scientists who look just like them are working to create a better tomorrow,” he says.
The program launched in 2017 with one Cube touring North America and has since expanded to five Cubes traveling across North America, Europe, and southern Africa. Locally, in 2026, the Curiosity Cube visited the Bald Eagle Area School District, the J.A.M. Fest in State College, and three elementary schools: Bellefonte, Corl Street, and Mount Nittany.
60th Anniversary Celebration
The company will celebrate its 60th anniversary on Tuesday, Oct. 6, with corporate visitors, a town hall and luncheon, and a display of historic artifacts, including original catalogs.
Funk hopes to gather employees on the lawn to reenact standing in a giant “S” for Supelco.
Customer Service
Funk has worked for the company for 25 years, including 3.5 years as site director.
“I used to work for another company in town. And I remember back in the ’90s, if I needed an HPLC column, I could call here and order it in the morning, and pick it up in the afternoon. They would make it in one day, you know. Have a brand-new column. That’s service.”
To learn more, visit milliporesigma.com. T&G
Karen Dabney is a freelance writer and contra dancer in State College.
