BIO-CAT, Troy, VA, has hired Candy Buchanan as the company’s new manager of marketing. She will be in charge of marketing communications, strategic and tactical implementation through advertising, brand management, collateral development, social media and industry tradeshows. 

“This is a new position at BIO-CAT and we are excited to welcome Candy to our team,” said Chris Schuler, president. “Candy brings energy and creativity combined with marketing talents to our growing company.”

Ms. Buchanan previously worked in a variety of marketing roles including G4S, Commercial TruckTrader.com and EquipmentOnline.com. She brings a wealth of experience in marketing communications, tradeshow management, event planning, and corporate branding. She holds a bachelor’s of business administration from Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

The company also announced that Dr. Thomas Laaman has joined the company as the new technical director. “Dr. Laaman brings a very customer focused approach to enzyme product development and considers innovation to be the key for success,” said Ed Schuler, CEO and founder of BIO-CAT.

Prior to joining BIO-CAT, Dr. Laaman led research and product development at companies such as Merck, FMC Corporation and Pepsico as well as the Norwegian company Pronova and the Japanese company Kimica. He combines the highest level of basic and applied scientific knowledge obtained from earning degrees at Cornell, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and a post-doctoral stint at the University of Texas Medical School. 

Dr. Laaman said he believes “we have to translate needs that customers express to us into tangible commercial products but we need to also go way beyond that. We need to be willing to creatively extrapolate our unique Bio-Cat enzymes into market segments and applications where the researchers in those applications could not have anticipated a unique enzyme solution to long existing or newly developing challenges.”