Few facility directors need to be reminded of the seemingly endless array of problems that come with the title, Director. Complaints about service charges; proteins that fail to sequence; "slow" sample turn-around; instrumentation failures; high personnel turnover/low morale; insufficient/no credit for critical research contributions; and account deficits are but a few of the typical problems confronted by facility directors (and their staffs) on an almost daily basis. It is therefore important to occasionally remind ourselves why we either chose or let ourselves be diverted into this career choice.
"Tangible" reasons in support of such a decision are that serving as a facility director sometimes offers a viable alternative to the "tenure track" route to job security in academics. In addition, directing a facility may provide a significant alternative source of salary funds which, in the event of the sudden loss of a grant, might mean the difference between being able to get by versus having to look for another position. Since ABRF surveys indicate that most facility directors do not receive priority in terms of sample turn-around, contribute a relatively small percentage of the overall number of samples run in their own facilities (i.e., about 23 % based on the 1989 ABRF survey) and, more often than not, pay the same service charges as any other user of their facility; the "tangible" rewards of directing a facility are less than are usually supposed by our users. However, in my opinion, the intangible rewards are far more substantial and help to make this one of the most worthy positions in biomedical research. Rather than dedicating oneself to a single research project, which may have only a relatively small chance of making a truly significant and lasting contribution to science and society, the director of a facility has the opportunity of making essential contributions to research projects that are limited in number and scope only by the capacity of his/her facility to carry out an ever increasing number of protein and nucleic acid analyses at an ever lower level and peptide and oligonucleotide syntheses at an ever increasing length. By directing a facility, the probability of playing a truly significant role in furthering our understanding of science and the life process is thus substantially enhanced. While critics may argue that such a contribution is "meaningless" if it is not accompanied by a citation or at the very least, an acknowledgment, I would respond with the following quote (from a source I unfortunately cannot remember):
"There's no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who receives the credit"
As I believe that happiness derives mostly from within, I would not hesitate to encourage others to follow this career path.
Ken Williams
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