Veteran staffer streamlines system

Nancy Picker creates programs to track and share chemistry supplies

Nancy Picker has angels looking out for her, half a dozen in fact, a colorful array that crowds her desk in McMillan 102. The hand-painted watercolors, done by her cousin Jerry Wilke, frame the window separating Picker from the crush of professors, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduates who rely on her daily for chemicals and supplies. Squinting through the cloudy glass, one can almost imagine a researcher's pale visage blending into that heavenly host -- but it still doesn't explain why Picker's so unfailingly nice to them.

"I enjoy the rapport with chemists," Picker explained simply. "We have a very customer service attitude down here -- we're here to make the research happen as quickly as possible. It's very satisfying when a customer is able to leave with the items they want."

For almost two decades Picker has served as the storeroom manager for the Department of Chemistry in Arts and Sciences -- a more complex job than it might sound. The storeroom could more accurately be described as a University-wide scientific supply clearinghouse. With a staff ranging from three to five, depending on her allotment of work study students, and a purchasing budget well into six figures, Picker maintains an inventory of some 1,200 separate items, from office supplies and glassware to solvents and safety equipment. And that's not even counting the chemicals.

Campuswide service

Nancy Picker's ingenuity and resourcefulness have revolutionized operations in the chemistry department storeroom.

Whatever Picker's doing, it seems to be working. More than two-thirds of her current 400-odd customers come from outside the chemistry department. In the last two years alone, her distributions to other departments have increased by 260 percent.

Picker was born and raised in Eau Claire, a small town in west-central Wisconsin, but came to St. Louis with her family the day after her 18th birthday.

She spent the next two years at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, where she planned to become a school teacher, but left before graduation to marry and begin a family. Within a few years she'd given birth to two sons, Tom and Brian, but separated from her husband by the time Brian was four.

"Statistics would have it that to be a single mom raising two boys is to have no chance of them turning out okay," Picker said with a slight smile. "But Tom and Brian were always good kids -- well behaved, always very active in church. Both of them are college grads."

It was a convoluted -- though, in retrospect, oddly logical -- series of jobs that brought the young single mom to Washington University. Work as a defensive driving instructor segued into an assistant manager position at a local car dealership which in turn led to a managerial position at a local graphics company. Picker was appalled at the state of the company's storeroom and, with typical gusto, took it upon herself to organize a computerized catalog of shipments and supplies. That experience led her, in 1981, to join the University staff.

"Walking in the door for the first time, and for years after, I felt very privileged," Picker recalled. "Wash U is such a big, prestigious university. And I thought, Lord, you got me here, now you've got to help me."

A big prestigious university perhaps, but one whose chemistry storeroom was in desperate need of Picker's help. "There were shelves full of stuff and no plan for keeping them organized," she said. "It was just all sitting there. And I thought, oh golly Moses, where do I begin?"

Picker began by instituting a number of programs that dramatically lowered the costs -- both in dollars and in waste -- of doing chemistry. Her first program, Chem Share, came about when she realized that selling overstocks to her colleagues in other departments and at other universities -- even at a loss -- was less expensive than paying for storage, return or disposal. Returning $20 worth of sodium, for example, might incur $40 in shipping charges or $150 in disposal fees. Chem Share not only saves the University money but ensures that, one way or another, the chemicals are productively used.

"One of my main objectives is to see that we're not wasting money or creating more waste," Picker explained. "I guess I'm creative that way. If there's a way of doing things more efficiently, that's when my brain kicks in with a plan."

Picker's most recent initiative began when one of her suppliers launched a bulk sales division. Picker agreed to become a beta tester for the new division, offering feedback and suggestions on packaging, shipping and other operations. In exchange, the chemistry department received dramatic discounts on various stock chemicals.

Picker's proudest accomplishment, however, is the Chem Search program, which she launched almost a decade ago.

"Occasionally a customer would need a small quantity of something or else need something in a hurry," she recalled. "Sometimes I'd remember ordering the same thing for someone else but not be able to remember who it was. It drove me nuts."

Picker explained that, at the time, there was no way to trace the location of a chemical after the user picked it up. Such information would be useful in a number of ways: A researcher requiring only a small test sample, for example, might be able to draw from another researcher's existing stock rather than placing a whole new order. Picker also knew that maintaining such information would bring the University into compliance with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Right to Know Act, which had just been passed and required disclosure about the storage and location of potentially hazardous materials.

Picker's solution was remarkably elegant: if storage information was entered directly onto the purchase order, she realized, it could then be extracted via computer and uploaded into a separate data base. She presented the idea to her former boss, Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., who by that time had become provost.

"Nancy's idea was obviously so good that I was happy to help her get it going," recalled Macias, now executive vice chancellor and dean of Arts and Sciences. "This University works best when we give clever and creative people like Nancy a chance to try out their own ideas."

Up and running

"The program sorts chemicals by building, by room, by researcher," Picker said. "Before, we wouldn't be able to tell what was in a lab without a lot of work. Now we can quickly find out what's in every room in the department."

But if the business of science is serious indeed, the business of catering to scientists -- well, let's just say it helps to keep a sense of humor. And for all her obvious dedication, Picker has not been above pulling the occasional tenured leg. In one prank, she informed a researcher with mock hysteria that the specially bred lab mice he had ordered were taking over the stockroom floor. Another researcher, picking up an order of bovine ovaries, was handed a carton of grocery store "Grade A" white eggs. (He did get his ovaries, if not the joke.)

High spirits are important to Picker. "When you have five or six people working out of one small office, you have to maintain a lighthearted, supportive attitude," she explained.

In all the sheer volume of stuff that passes Picker's way -- from chemicals and computers to instruments and solvents -- without a doubt her most important find was a decidedly personal one. Five years ago last July, Nancy was married to Steve Picker, a lab technician in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

"We met in the storeroom," Nancy said, beaming. "He was a regular customer for supplies and such for probably 12 years, so we knew each other long before we started seeing one another."

"He's still one of my best customers," she added with a grin.