Chemistry Overview

	B.A. - Chemistry, Gordon College Ph.D. - Electroanalytical Chemistry, Tufts University
	Manager of Technology, Asia Pacific
	"The key is to have enough training in your background to give you flexibility in the future."

Dante Rutstrom, business manager for cosmetics and personal care at Eastman, did not know he would be working in sales and marketing when he first entered the chemical industry with a Ph.D. in electroanalytical chemistry. But he realized he was well suited for the more social aspects of marketing. "In the lab, I started to feel like I was creating things in a vacuum," he says. "There's a likelihood I'll go back to research, and if I do, I'll have a better understanding of customer needs."

The key is to have enough training in your background to give you flexibility in the future, says Rustrom. "As chemists, we tend to overspecialize. That's why it's helpful to take business courses whenever you can."

And as business becomes more global, it is becoming necessary for sales and marketing managers to have a facility for languages. French and German will enable you to communicate with most people in Europe, but Spanish, Chinese, or Russian may be more useful as new markets develop worldwide.