Thirtieth Anniversary of Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.

The 14th of July, 2025, is the 30th anniversary of my materials analysis laboratory, Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.  Within two weeks of the announcement that the recent merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta was going to result in the closing of the Martin Marietta Laboratories - Baltimore laboratory, I incorporated Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.

I initially provided surface analysis services using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, also called electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis or ESCA) and a scanning Auger electron microprobe (SAM).  Soon, I added thermal analysis services (thermogravimetry or TGA, differential scanning calorimetry or DSC, thermomechanical analysis or TMA, and dynamic mechanical analysis or DMA) and metallographic microscopy.  Down the road awhile, we offered infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).  We then added energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to our SEM.

Still later, we added mechanical testing capabilities with the purchase of a used Instron machine and we upgraded its electronic controls and software.  We purchased an ultraviolet - visible light or UV-Vis spectrometer.  Then came the purchase of our gas chromatography - mass spectrometer (GC-MS), followed by the purchase of our wavelength-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF).  Next, we purchased a 3-dimension high resolution digital optical microscope with surface profiling capabilities and an integrated laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) elemental microanalysis spectrometer. Finally, our last major purchase was our x-ray diffraction instrument (XRD).  Through the years, I commonly paid myself less salary than my employees so I could invest more into expanding the laboratory's materials analysis capabilities.

This expanding instrument capability has helped us to provide a wide range of materials characterizations, failure analyses, materials verifications, quality control, detection of hazards, and research and development services.  We utilize these capabilities on materials as varied as metals, semiconductors, polymers, glasses, ceramics, composite materials, minerals and other inorganic chemicals, and organic liquids.  We presently employ 8 people, counting two interns and two other part time employees.

Today, Howard County, Maryland, presented me with my annual personal property tax bill.  My willingness to forgo income, purchase the equipment of my laboratory, and to take on risk, leaves me subject to a large tax bill annually for the value of my laboratory equipment.  That equipment depreciates, but if it is in use, it never depreciates below 25% of its initial cost.  This is one instance in which inflation is a good thing.  At least the expense of purchasing equipment in 1996 is much reduced by the inflation since then, along with the subsequent property tax.

Governments love taking from small businesses.  From each according to his ability or capability, to each according to someone's perception of their own need or maybe somebody else's need.  The force of government is most easily applied against a minority, such as capable small business owners.  Yet, after 30 years, I will continue working for as many more years as I can.  I still like solving materials problems and working with the kind of people who share my interest in using materials to improve the condition of mankind.

The Failure of Tulsa, Oklahoma Public High Schools

I graduated from Tulsa's Memorial High School in 1965.  I have a number of family members who still live in the Tulsa Metro Area.  I just looked up an evaluation website to see what the Tulsa Public School system was providing as an "education" at the high school level.

Let me start with my own high school.  Memorial High School students are 10 to 14% proficient in math and 10 - 14% proficient in reading.  This is about what most of the 18 public high schools in Tulsa are accomplishing in the way of an "education."  The best of the bunch are Tulsa Met High School (math proficiency <50%, Reading < 50%) and Booker T. Washington High School (Math 38%, Reading 53%).  Next is Dove Science Academy Tulsa High School (math 30 - 39%, reading 30-39%) where it is apparently thought that science can be performed without math and without being able to read.  Union High School, ranked fourth best of 18, boasts a 29% math proficiency and a 34% reading proficiency.  The fifth best is Tulsa Honor Academy High School (a charter school) proudly proclaiming the Honor in having a 25- 29% math proficiency and a 30 - 34% reading proficiency.  The Thomas Edison Preparatory High School is math 18% and reading 45%.  This cannot be preparation for college.  Perhaps it is preparation to enter a decent middle school somewhere else in the USA.

Of the remaining public high schools in Tulsa, not one of them has a math proficiency score as high as 20%.  Two of those schools have Sciences in their name and one of those has a math proficiency of 5% or less.  Four of the high schools have math proficiencies of 5% or less.

Nine of the Tulsa high schools have reading proficiencies of less than 20%.  Five of the high schools have reading proficiency for 10% or less of their students.

Why do the people of Tulsa pay for high schools and teachers at all, if this is viewed as anything close to an acceptable educational outcome?  Is it just so they can have high school football?  Tulsans are mad about football.  I love football.  But one can have both football and an education.  In my graduating class of about 250 individuals, two of our starters on our conference-winning football team went to The U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  One of them and another starting offensive lineman became MDs.  At least another two of my classmates became MDs.  One became a professor of economics at Northwestern University.  Numerous others became engineers, dentists, and lawyers.  The Tulsa public schools system has clearly destroyed my high school, along with many others.

Or do Tulsans pay taxes for useless high schools because the politicians and the teachers unions have completely bamboozled them? 

It is morally wrong to force children to attend failing high schools.  Among those Tulsa children forced to attend a useless high school, there are many whose time is being wasted.  Some would learn useful skills if they were allowed to work.  Others would teach themselves more than these useless schools are teaching them.  Parents have an obligation to educate their children.  Others do not have an obligation to educate the children of others.  What individuals must do morally for the children of others, is to not act to prevent them from getting an education.  When voters elect government officials who force children to waste their time in useless high schools, this is a case in which those voters are acting to prevent children from learning.  The Tulsa high schools are a moral abomination.

They are not alone.  The public schools of America are generally an abomination from elementary schools through the universities.  The complete system of American education needs to be torn down and restarted on rational principles.  Few young Americans are proficient in math and reading.  Few know enough science, civics, history, and economics/business practices to function as well as they ought to in an advanced capitalist economy and civilization.

It is a sad result that AI will actually be easily able to replace many of our uneducated people before long.  This should be a much harder task for AI to accomplish, but people who know nothing have also never learned how to know much of anything.  Mankind's primary means of survival is the mind.  If you will not train and optimize your mind, you will not thrive and you may well not survive.  Parents need to live up to their obligations and everyone else must at least not be roadblocks preventing a child who wants to learn and develop his mind from doing so.