Metrohm Raman: The Raman (not noodle)

We're back again with Tressa and Myra as they delve into the groundbreaking world of contraband detection with special guests Brian Ray and Britan Woody from Metrohm Raman, headquartered in picturesque Laramie, Wyoming. Discover how their cutting-edge field-testing technology is revolutionizing law enforcement efforts, enabling the detection of illicit drugs, explosives, and other prohibited substances with unparalleled accuracy and efficiency. Learn firsthand how Metrohm Raman's innovative solutions are making communities safer, one scan at a time, all from the heart of the Cowboy State.

Transcript

This transcript was generated using speech-to-text technology. accuracy may vary in spots.

Authentic Wyoming, Metrohm Raman
Air Date: May 7, 2024

Hi, I'm Myra and I'm Tressa. We are fancy marketing people with Union, Wyoming based telecommunications company. Yes, Wyoming really does exist. We proudly serve the Rocky Mountain region. On this podcast, we will feature businesses, organizations, nonprofits, and influential people from Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Our mission is to highlight those who inspire their communities daily.

We believe this makes us truly authentic because a journey of a thousand miles always begins with a single step.

Hello, Tressa. Hey, Myra. What's up? Well, you know, back in podcast land. You? Yeah. Back. Back in. Podcast land. Back to work. Back to work. Yeah. Alive and well. That's good. Yeah. We're happy to have you. Yeah. It's been a minute. Hopefully you enjoyed your time off, but time off? Yeah. Being a mother with a newborn.

Yeah, that's what it's called, right? Time to relaxation. Relax. It would have been a little better if there was an umbrella in my drink somewhere else. That's what I pictured. Yeah? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Draco. And when? Hour. Yeah. You're drinking the other drink in the other. Yeah. That would have though. Would have been a little bit much better with my time.

He's such a good baby, though. He is a good baby. Does it mean it's relaxing? I get that, I mean, there's other people in the house. It's not as relaxing. Yeah, yeah. If it was just him, you know, I saw this meme or like a YouTube video or something where it was, like, a little baby and the and it's like when you're in the hospital and you think that you're the only one with your mom and dad, and it's so quiet and blissful, and then the audio in the back is like when you get home and then you hear, like, screaming and like, brothers and sisters all around.

It's like, yeah, that's pretty much Draco. So it's all of us going crazy. And then you see this baby, like, what the looking around like, yeah, I get myself into. Yeah. Like who pick these people. I didn't sign up for this. Yeah, but yeah, it's been okay. Yeah, it's a good guess. Yeah. We're glad to have you back.

We had a team meeting last two days. That was good. Yeah, I got fortune cookies yesterday. I see you keeping your fortune. I am. It says this is a prosperous time of life for you. And Katherine said, yeah. As I'm jobless and homeless at the moment, this is very prosperous for me. Well, that means you're going to be prosperous, right?

Yeah, yeah, that will be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe somebody will pick me up. Just homeless. Yeah. 30 more days. 30 more days at the job? Yeah. That all works too well, it'll all work out. Yeah, it'll be good. Yeah, yeah. So, anything exciting in your life? Exciting? I don't know about exciting. Did you go the Yukon? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I recently did go to the Yukon. What'd you do? It was cold there. I'm like, why did we visit a different thickness a little bit?

Yeah, I'm colder there usually. Like with Fahrenheit, of course they use Celsius. But, the time of year that we went mid February, it's usually like 50 below Fahrenheit. But most days it was actually above freezing, so it was unseasonably warm for them. when we were there I still felt chilly. But anyway, see, my friend, she has a trap line there, and so we snow machined into some of her cabin.

She has two different cabins, and it was beautiful. Beautiful country.

just enjoyed kind of being remote and out of pocket. Oh, really? Adam is here? Yeah. no internet. no connection. did a lot of reading. Just relaxing is nice. Did you catch anything or trip? Yeah, yeah. We did. I'm not sure how I feel about it, to be honest with you. Yeah, I got to. Yeah. so I stayed in the cabin and away from the trap. Away from the trap? Yeah. Just enjoyed the snow machining and that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, trapping was not my favorite part. Yeah. So. Yeah, but it was good. Yeah. I don't think that's going to be my trip next February. Going back to Costa Rica.

I've got to stay somewhere warm I do. Yeah I went from cold. The cold right. Yeah I know I love said it was good to see her but yeah. Yeah. Well now you done it. Yeah, I've done it. You can say it was an experience. Yeah, this was good. People should have different experiences. It's good for their growth.

Yeah, but you went. No, you didn't like it. That's right, I tried it. It's true. Yeah. That's true. This is no longer trapping. I'm no longer no longer on my bucket list. Not not that it ever was, but definitely not doing it again. Yeah. So so yeah, back to work. And, we've got New York coming up, I know.

Yeah. That'll be Wyoming takes. Right. You. Looking forward to that. So yeah. Well cool. Well, this episode, I'm really excited. We're going to have, Metrohm Ramen on today. And, we have Britton, Woody and Brian Ray with us. Hello. Hi, guys. Hello. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Welcome. Yeah. Thanks for being here. do you guys just want to start out telling us what your titles are and kind of a little bit about the company and what you do here.

So my name's Britton Woody. I am the product specialist here. And so, we're the manufacturer of the products, and we are owned by a big parent organization. So

I'm kind of the voice between the manufacturer and the sales teams. so I do servicing and the marketing, trainings type things. So I get a lot of time with the device and then, seeing the salespeople and customers type of thing. And yeah, I've been here for about four and a half years now. yeah. I started as an intern and then got hired full time after I graduated. Wow. We love to see that. Yeah. It's wonderful. 

I'm Brian Ray. I am the product manager for, Metrohm Raman. what my role is, is I help design the products. I kind of work with, Britton, and we go out and visit customers, visit our sales organizations so they have questions or requirements.

I make sure that our engineers can understand what those requirements are, because the engineering mind is way different than an actual end users mind.

I am. We understand that we. Yes, yes, yes. If you left it to an engineer, we would all be driving Saabs or Vlovos. Yeah. One size fits all. Yeah, yeah. Yep yep. Or to have more utilitarian. That is useful for beauty, I guess. but, Metro, ramen, started off as a Wyoming company called Snowy Range Instruments, founded by a man called,

named, not called, but named Keith.

And, we've been working in this technology for. Decades. Keith was a professor at the University of Wyoming, and he started companies back in the 90s and he has developed companies and sold them multiple times, through different, acquisitions, throughout his history. And in 2009, he started Snowy Range Instruments, which is the current, Metro ramen. but he started it in 2009 and started a, really designing systems for medical applications. So you have a laser that cartridges a vein or artery. And we were using the ramen to make sure that this was done properly and wasn't damaging the materials around it. From there, we started working towards the handheld, markets again. we've done handheld in the first, in the past before the beginning of the snowy range. And in fact, Keith is the first person to ever make a handheld device that uses this technology. Anyway, step forward a little bit. 

In 2014 or so, we started working with a company out of Switzerland called Metro. And Metro. hired us to develop a product for them. And once they saw the applications and the technology and   how useful it is, instead of just being a source for their products, we actually they actually purchased us in 2016.

Wow. And since then, we've taken a lot of, knowledge and the fact that Metro is a worldwide company, and developed our products into the current products that we have today. So, it's one of those things where we employ about 45 people in Laramie, Wyoming, and it's been about 45 for the past. 4 or 5 years now. where we are again, as Brittany mentioned, the manufacturer and the competency center, what that means is we're the experts in the technology. we're the experts. What? Brittany nine on how you how users use our technology, which then we translate to our engineers, which they develop new products, which then we, Brittany, myself and a few other people on our team make marketing collateral and all the information that our sales organizations need to use to, make marketing campaigns throughout the world.

And we don't do that directly here. because we're represented in 80 countries. If we were to do a marketing campaign here, we would have to translate that 80 times. And my Spanish is very broken, and I wouldn't be very clear. My German is absolutely zero, except for I'll admit that which is means check, please. And I'm like nine, which is.

No, I mean, that's about it. Yeah. So, we don't we don't do a lot of the, the actual marketing campaigns, but we do develop the, the, the collateral for it. Yes. Which then we share with our sales organizations, they translate it and convert it into a campaign that they, they run themselves. So what we do here mainly is the technology part and the expertise in the technology. I think it's really cool. you're talking about like the end user part of it because as a team, we actually just read a book, I think called The Design of Everything. Yeah. And the whole book is literally about, like doorknobs would be in other places if an engineer created it and there wasn't a the end user in mind, or like, why the handle of a coffee pot is the way it is or things like that.

And so, that's what I'm hearing from you guys. So being part of that end user, what is one of the products that you've recently helped design or make, that you've given input on that you think, is the coolest or stands out most recently? Yeah. And how does the end user actually use the. Yeah, yeah. So I don't want to do a product demonstration.

I will, but you will, I will show the product to use your van a lot. Yeah, yeah. No, it's good to get a visual. Yeah, yeah. This is a handheld Raman system. And essentially what Raman is, is laser identification of chemicals. So you shoot a sample and it has a single wavelength. When it interacts with the sample, it scatters at different wavelengths, essentially making an optical fingerprint.

So that optical fingerprint is then recorded through the device. And we have a library of those optical fingerprints and we can match against it to identify what that sample is. And then with that and it gives you warnings on the screen itself. So I'm going to do a real quick sample here.

Is scanning the sample that I have in this little plastic bag. And it's acquiring. And the our end users are military police firefighters. And what for this device. one of the devices we have multiple devices we actually sell, the they're not they're not scientists. a lot of them are have a high school education or a community college, criminal law degree. so what we have to do is make this and make this device really simple for them to understand. So you saw what I did there, where I just push the button and just started scanning. I put it up against the sample, and now it says on their EMT. So this is tri nitro tall using an explosive at the bottom.

You see that says explosive. So this is the simplicity that we want.

this is where if we allowed it engineers, it would say it only in the chemical name. No one knows what tri nitro Collin is. yes, they do know what they know what TNT is. Yeah. and and again, really trying to make it simple.

We say on the bottom explosives. So even then, if you actually look at all the different drugs that you have today, especially with, MDMA and all those different versions, it was we give them essentially color coding dangerous. And then at the bottom says. Or controls. And so what they can understand in their brain what, what just happened.

And it made it really simple what I did there. But there is a huge amount of technology inside that device to make all this work. And they don't. It shouldn't be, where the user has to understand this technology. We made it towards essentially a black box. You press the button on and you have the sample, you press a button and it gives you that warning on right to you directly on the screen.

Then they make decisions based off of that. That's an explosive. So first thing to do would be run away. Yeah that's what I'd recommend. Yeah. Yes yes yes. Don't hang out. Yeah. Keep the enemies you reassess. Yeah okay. Then you reassess the situation and cordon off everything and make sure everybody is far enough away that you can then bring in your the, EOD team, your ordnance disposal teams, things like that.

Then, a lot of our customers use it for strictly drug identification. Explosives are more of the military, but for local police, firefighters, things like that. what they do is they identify drugs, and it's the same thing where you go in and you see bottles everywhere, and you don't know what this is. you suspect it's a clandestine lab.

You can go in and identify those bottles. Yeah. Meth lab. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I did not know that I worked here. That's some kind of lab. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. Clandestine lab is a, uncontrolled, laboratory used by bad people to build things. Drugs, explosives, chemical warfare agents, things like that. but anyway, they can go in the fire fighters, go in there and identify something and says, oh, that's meth. Back out. Go and put on your proper, secure, safety equipment. It's, personal protective equipment and cordon off the area and make sure everybody safe. I want to add that to real quick. how you're asking what we've came out with, meet end users needs. What's going on? Explosives. We have came out with this, integration project. Project and package with the Boston Dynamics robots to take our device. They carry our device on the back of them, and,

as well as five other environmental sensors so that that can enter,

hazardous area or a suspicious area. And, they'll have video, live video feed of what the robot seeing and they'll get be able to test all those, sensors, including the mirror device. and get that right back onto a tablet. So then they don't have to waste the time of going back in and out, and they also don't have to risk that safety to them. they can make sure that every person around is away and safe using robots to do that first entry. So it's wow. Instead of using one person I know this is amazing.

Yeah, yeah. So could something like this work for like TSA? yeah. Good question. Okay. Yeah. Because I was just, I'm about to fly and I'm thinking about, formula. I have to carry formula with me. And it's a white powdered substance, you know, and so who knows what I'm bringing? right. And so I was just this is what it's making me think of, like,so if they were testing my formula, they could use a device like this to see exactly what the substances. If you fly out of Laramie, Wyoming, ever, you can actually go in there and see there's a product made by a company but the technology inside of it is our technology. so if there's a whole bunch of different airports, but that is one that's local that I know exist, but it's a model that scanner allows you to identify your milk powder when you fly not all airports use it some other airports use different type of technologies, but, there's probably few hundred different airports that have this technology in it. for that,

I will say that this is not, a detection system. It's an identification system. Okay. So I can if you just walk through a portal, and you have explosives on you, I can't I can't detect that you have it. This, in other words, a little particles that fly off of you when you're walking through the portal. that's a different technology. this here is where I've identified you as a threat. I found something on your person. Now I can go and identify that and validate that this is truly that you are a threat or. No, that's just milk powder. That has been modified to look like explosives. So watch out, TSA. I'm with the retail.

I'm a drug lord. Yeah, he's just a product I think people will do. Like to get away. Yeah. You're not wrong. No. Like. Yeah. Made me. This job has made me like this is trust. I've been companies in the public a lot more. You know what they like state, yeah. I mean, it's really. And I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's crazy what they do out in the world now.

Yeah, knowledge is power. So I would say it's a good thing. Yeah. I think being cautious and being aware is a good thing. Right. Yeah. So what do you guys would from other companies who do stuff like this. If there is, what do you think sets you apart? sets us apart is, our honesty to our customers. So a lot of our competitors, they will lie about specifics and capabilities of their devices. And so,the customer will get this expectation, what they'll do or even just the technology of roaming can do whereas we are very honest and you provide system, but for being so honest. But we like to make sure that the customer knows what it can do because we don't want them to expect how this function and then go out in the real world it goes back to that.

Who is the end user? They're not expert anything, other than keeping people safe. Right. So what we do is make sure they understand what the what they're working with and how to use it. The other thing that we really focus on here, this is not the only product we have. We have multiple products from ones that you use in a laboratory, benchtop version of it, all the way to the little handhelds that we have here, where we've implemented a Monroe box and things like that. but what we really focus on is safety and actionable intelligence. So safety, I give you what you need to be safe and make this the public safe and the actionable intelligence. As part of that, we're giving you that warning on the screen. You know what to do. You, as an expert of keeping people safe, can't go in there and cordon off the areas and, and make quick decisions quickly on speaking. Quick decisions quickly. Yeah. Quick decisions quickly. Yeah, I'm here for that. Yeah, yeah. Very proper, proper decisions quickly. There you go. And so speaking of, like, the safety to where we're trying mentioned that we try and make the device as simple as possible. We do put a lot of effort, into designing these safe products. So obviously this is a high-powered laser coming through here.

So you don't want that just turning on and shining in someone's eyes it's pretty safe where you can have your skin on it, but it will make you go blind if you stare directly into it. so we've done things where, like, if you take the chip off, it automatically shuts off, so you can't it's not going to scan anyone in the eyes. and just a bunch of different checks to make sure you're sure. so we've tried to make that so people without a lot of knowledge on safety or what this could do as well can be said, with the product itself. Yeah. What are you talking about? Like, police using it, firefighters using it. Sometimes those departments have budget restrictions and those types of things.

Do you guys try to make sure that you have it at an economical price, or do you offer a discount to those type of people needing that in public service? So the good thing about that is being the manufacturer and expert, I don't have to set pricing. However, I will say yes, yes we are. We are priced as,

I would say in the middle of the road for these products for we do have competition. So we are competitively priced. But it is something that we are very focused on and in fact, that we actually have different tiers where you have a device that's very simple without all a bunch of bells and whistles, which mostly is what the police officers, want, because all they care about is drugs and I was I want is essentially easy to use. I find a baggie, a powder or, a pouch of sample, and I scan it. Then I have the other side, which wants all the bells and whistles that we actually have this attachment. It's a telescope. So you can be, like, two meters away from it to identify it. And that's a unique customer, but that those unique customers also have a little bit more money to spend. So we do build, packages that allow you to sell economic li and all the way up to the high end, just like Chevrolet. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, I really I love what you were talking about to brighten with honesty, just having that transparency about, it's not just specs like, this is something that Truss and I on the team were just talking about, too. From a marketing perspective, your end users shouldn't have to guess how the product works. that's not their job. That's not what they're meant to do. So having a product that you're transparent, you're honest, the end user knows what they're expecting from the product and how to use it.

I think is really, really, really incredible, especially, for the safety of the end user. And the safety, that they're trying to uphold, no matter what situation that they're and they're not sitting there trying to decipher something they're able to, like Brian said, make quick decisions quick, you know, like they're, they're they're your product. They're, so I think that it is really incredible. Yeah, I did too. 

changing gears just a little bit off of the product, a more like being,

established in Wyoming. Laramie, Wyoming, University of Wyoming right there. I imagine you've got engineers, you got scientists, you got people developing this stuff. Do you, try to pull from the pool of graduates from UW? Is that an intention of this company? Yes, definitely. We we hire a lot right now as a prime example. we do a lot of internships, which then turn into positions, which then turn into

employees, electrical engineers, software engineers, mechanical engineers. I would say that probably 80 to 90% of them are UW graduates. And then the others are coming from other places moving to Wyoming because of the the dream of Wyoming is, the best place in the world to live, I agree. Yeah, I love that. I, I love that we have these companies like yours that, I don't think a lot of people are probably even aware exist where, you know, local people from the state can get an education, whether it be at UW, right, or another college and come back and use their craft, right, right within the state that they want to be in. 

So I love I love that we're highlighting that. And if you get a degree at the University of Wyoming and engineering, that doesn't mean you have to go work for oil and gas. You know, there's other technologies in this in this state. And I to folks like yours or podcasts like yours, it's, important to get people recognized companies like this because again, lots of times they don't know it even exist. There's a whole bunch of technology. There's actually, computer board makers out in Rock Springs that, do you know, that actually exist? Yeah. Everybody believes a computer board is made over in China. We actually have a technology like that in Wyoming. We actually use them to build some of our boards.

So it is one of those good things about Wyoming is that we are technically advanced. And, and a whole bunch of different industries and little, little companies like ours and is, I think, a fun, company, you know, a fun thing to do to help development in Wyoming, help develop businesses in Wyoming. we are always up to are always open to, advice if anybody wants to.

It has questions about starting a company in Wyoming because we've done it multiple times. and what to what what to expect when I'm getting ready to sell to a larger company? that's also something people don't really think about, but it is. Okay. I really enjoy it. It's a pretty unique company and opportunity, I would say, to have, like being able to work in like downtown Laramie, where he was saying, I didn't know until I got this job that this building really even existed.

And it's right across from Prairie Road, where I spent every weekend. So it's just like an incredible, I don't know, company that there is. I mean, they're producing all these products downstairs in the basement right now. And, just to have that happen, one in Laramie and Wyoming and then to be owned by this big Swiss company, we're able to travel all over the world, all over, you know, to Europe often, down to South America. We're just able to still see the world and come back to Little Wyoming and and be safe and back home. So it's really nice. Yeah. Enjoying the lifestyle that you love. Right. in the place that you love, but still doing things that you're passionate about.

And, bringing to light these, these opportunities that are not extraction based, right, or ranching based. There's so many other opportunities that, this is our mission right here, you know, talking to people like you to bring these to light, that there's other technologies, technology companies. Right. You're developing things,

that people have an opportunity to still live within the state of Wyoming, and do those types of things.

So that's wonderful. Yeah. Well, guys, we're at the end of the episode.

and before we go, we just want to ask, both of you or either one of you, how do you guys stay authentic?

I think we stay authentic. Kind of going back to that transparency. Transparency and being honest to our customers we met.

Our motto is people you can trust. And we really like to, live by that and make sure that we are being is open to our customers as well as available. So we often are there to be support directly to customers and, look at their data and help them understand what's going on or fix their device. And so I think that's how we kind of just say authentic is being honest and having that good relationship with them and keeping them in line.

I love that, I love that, yeah. Great answer. Written. Well thank you guys so much. We really appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to us. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for having us. That's awesome. Yeah. Great. Great. Well, until next time. Stay authentic. Make your decisions quickly. Yeah.