About me - Fabrizio Goffredi, freelance chemist

Fabrizio Goffredi - Chemist - Freelance

My professional career (in brief)

During the 2010-2012 period, as part of VII Framework Programme, I collaborate with Italian and European companies to the development of continuous processes for the production and purification of active ingredients for the pharmaceutical industry: projects Pharmagen and CCrystal. In the same period, I coordinate the development of an original electrochemical process, for the industrial production of an inorganic compound, protected by an International Patent in 2012.

My role as consultant

In 2014 I begin my job as a business consultant and I start to explore the fields of technologies and productions where to apply the working method acquired in 25 years of experience, with the aim of offering to my customer the competitive advantage necessary to improve its market positioning and increase the operating margins of its business.
My counselling will appeal both to small and large companies searching for the classification of a product-service where chemistry, a transversal science, has a prominent role. The fields of election are: the pharmaceutical chemistry, food (wine, dairy, olive oil industry), cosmetics and detergents (personal care).
A growing number of companies, by now, have to incorporate the pressing EU regulations, and this requires a day by day management of many issues related both to environmental aspects and to products specification.
The chemical competence today is crucial.
My role of consultant is to stand by your side, when it is useful and appropriate, and make fully available all my experience to give you the opportunity to achieve your goals.

My passions

Travels - Learning by exploring

Since ever, I combine in my life the passion for journeys, sport and outdoor activities with the curiosity and technological interest, dedicating my free time travelling across Italy and Europe and visiting excellent companies in the sectors of wine production (Chianti, Tuscany, Piedmont, Sicily, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Cognac, Champagne, Porto, Jerez de la Frontera), of dairy (Campania, Tuscany, Lombardy, France) and of olive oil (Tuscany, Apulia, Sicily, Greece, Spain).
Travelling allows me to understand the economical evolutions of wine and of dairy products markets, especially for what concerns the quality wines and the fermented derivatives of fresh milk, two of my favourite food products.

Chemistry meets technology

Being a research chemist requires a constant and continuous updating of the knowledge of chemical and technological aspects, but also spurs me to deepen knowledges "across the board" that to my eyes come in clearly functional with being man of my time. So, at their first appearance, I have not been able to escape the charm of computers and their ability to execute given instructions in a quick and repeated way, never complaining. It is a long time since the computers I use at home are clones assembled on my own. But the enthusiasm for new technologies and innovation is great and the beginning of the web and networks lets me to see that world is projecting itself in a new dimension. So back in 1999, I combine my passion for wine, oenology and the web and I collaborate, together with my wife and a friend, at the creation and the publishing of an educational website about the world of wine and about the good drink, seen through the eyes of a chemist (www.italyeno.com).
This allows me to acquire and to develop knowledge that I use for the email service maintenance, in my professional environment, for over a decade. The same passion today allows me to publish my new personal website and to begin the project development of a personal Blog dealing with chemistry by the point of view of a chemist who gave his active contribution in more than 25 years of activities in a research laboratory.

Outdoor life and sport

But my passions do not end there, after the informatics, my second passion is the mountain bike. In this case, I think that the contiguity with the research is the charm for the climb. Oh yes, because who wants to have fun with a mountain bike must do a lot of climbs! As in life, or if you prefer as in the research, people who use a mountain bike know that at the end of a climb and a great effort sooner or later there will be the award: a nice downhill perhaps along an adventurous single track.

Other interest

Information technology, web design, search engine optimization (SEO), wine-making, woodworking, mechanics, electronics, programming.

My story (with a few more details ...)

The beginnings

Son of a university professor, I spend my youth living in close contact with a scientific academic environment.
I always had a tendency to make the best of my knowledge and my capability observing physical phenomena in order to find the solution to practical issues. For this reason I started my working experiences, by teenager, first in the field of dairy products (production and packaging of butter in a company of Cremona) and then in catering (as waiter and as chef assistant in Manchester).
At the end of the academic studies I begin my professional activity as a research chemist at the laboratories of the University of Palermo, collaborating with prof. Vincenzo Turco Liveri and prof. Lorenzo Pellerito. Along the thesis work and after graduation, I am involved in the study of aqueous systems simulating a chemical-biological environment. The activity of this period is described in six scientific publications, in form of papers, on national and international journals and of communications to conference.
In this period I also have a professional experience in two state technical institutes as a teacher in chemistry.

The first turning point

Driven by the desire to explore the world and to test my capability to solve technical issues in an applicative professional environment, in 1992 I move to Friuli (located in the north-eastern part of Italy) to continue my career as a research chemist in an industrial context.
The opportunity to enter the world of the industrial chemistry research comes in the form of a draft two-year post-lauream specialization, organized and managed by SniaRicerche. The training plan provides a well-structured and motivating path where periods in classroom alternate with periods of operational support in primary industrial and academic research centres, both Italian and European.
During the industrial internship I work at the research centre of applied chemistry located inside the chemical factory in Torviscosa (UD) and I enhance my knowledge on technical, financial, managerial and relational aspects typical of corporate life, following the teachings of the ISVOR FIAT tutors. During a six months accademic internship, at the DICAMP - University of Trieste - (DIA), I develop a predictive model of the rheological properties of pure substances and their mixtures in collaboration with the prof. Ireneo Kikic and prof. Maurizio Fermeglia.

The years of industrial research

In 1994 I obtain the qualification of industrial research chemist at high specialization and I get a steady job at the research centre of applied chemistry located inside the industrial factory in Torviscosa (UD), belonging to the chemical division of the corporate group.
The years from '94 to 2005 are years of significant growth both personal and professional within one of the last big Italian private industrial chemical groups. My activity takes place as part of a project, launched with the aim of revitalizing the company chemical sector, which plans to build a multi-purpose plant dedicated to the production of fine chemical intermediates and, simultaneously, the development of chemical processes to be run into the new plant.
In this period I mature an operative experience in reaction calorimetric studies applied to the determination of chemical risk in the scale-up processes (refrigeration, heating, study of the reaction rate, sizing of unit operations), giving a major contribution to the realization of inherently safe production processes. Working for a long time inside a chemical factory subjected to the Seveso directive, relating to the control of major accident hazards associated with the handling and the use of hazardous chemicals in production facilities, gave me in the habit of using routinely techniques of analysis, evaluation and management of chemical hazard in industrial environments (Hazop).
In the early 2000s, meanwhile, the dynamic of the international economic scenario guides the Caffaro chemical research activity (SNIA chemical division) towards products with higher added value. The years 2001-2005, therefore, see me engaged in a process of in-depth knowledge of both GMP-GLP working practices and of technologies-work methods utilized in the preparation of advanced intermediates for API (active ingredients of pharmaceutical products).

Contract chemical research

In March 2006, a corporate reorganization, leads to the spin off of the chemical research centre. The change of the company structure, also determines a deep transformation of my professional activity. The new company, in fact, starts up with the aim of offering chemical research services to national and international markets, and not just at the parent company. The challenge of the free market is demanding, but it also represents an incentive and an opportunity for a professional growth. It allows me to get out from the logic of the single buyer and gives me the opportunity to try my hand in the resolution of different issues and to interact with customers involved in different fields of industrial activity.
The ex-post evaluation of the period between 2007 and 2014, in which I work as a chemical contract researcher, is positive and meets my expectations. In this period I have the opportunity to work in an international environment working on two projects of the VII Framework Programme: Pharmagen and CCrystal. I expand my network of international knowledge and I collaborate with leading technology companies able to develop innovative production equipment and control systems. I also have the opportunity to cultivate and to keep alive my network of contacts in the academia.

From the idea to the production plant

Between 2010 and 2012, finally, I also have the remarkable opportunity to give full expression and to make the most of the experience gained in many years of research and development activity. In that period, in fact, I give a decisive contribution to the development of an innovative chemical technology: an original electrochemical process for the industrial production of an inorganic compound, protected by an International Patent in 2012.
To develop at laboratory scale a new technology and to coordinate successfully the subsequent realization of the innovative process at the pilot industrial scale, starting from a chemical formula written on a sheet of paper, it is an exciting professional experience and a moment of personal growth that gave me great satisfaction. A new technology is a professional target that you reach only at the end of a complex research and development activity, and in this case it also needed to engineer tailor-made technical devices, in isostatic graphite, developed in partnership with a world leader in this sector.
After reaching this important result, I begin to look for new challenges and professional goals to be achieved in the working context where I am, while contingent requirements of the company determine the gradual downsizing of the professional expectation, my and of my colleagues. And so, after thinking a bit about what is happening, I realized how being fully aware of my skills is leading me towards the end of the corporate life-cycle which determined their genesis.

The challenge of professional consulting services

The company strategic repositioning, happened at the beginning of 2014, is a signal which tells me that the time to face a new challenge has come: the natural evolution of my 25-year-old career will be to continue to analyse and to resolve issues, drawing on my wealth of experience, as independent chemist and freelancer.
So, I decide to give me some time off, during which I develop the business idea that I'm currently working on. The first tangible result of my activity as a freelancer is definitely under your eyes: you're reading a web site designed and built autonomously and independently, thought to tell about but, above all, to communicate the passion and dedication that I always put on in my job, whatever it is.

Present and future

Today, few months after the decision to became a chemical freelancer, I am ready to make available to each one of you the same passion, determination and will, which have always distinguished me, to identify solutions economically and technically sustainable to your problems.
Those ones who know me well and have had the opportunity to be my customers, already know my seriousness and the determination that I usually put on when I do my job. To encourage new customers I may add that choosing the chemical counselling of a freelancer like me, who did not wait for the end of corporate career to meet the challenge of a new professional life, provides a further guarantee because my economic success will depend on achieving your goals and I will not be brought to underestimate your problems.
If you feel that a chemical counselling can be helpful for you, please contact me and you will not be disappointed.

To conclude...

You've come up to here and I have to acknowledge it, you have been really persevering! Do not hesitate any longer, just choose the way to contact me, Telephone, E-mail, Skype and start telling me something about your problem or your needs, to let me understand how I can apply my professional expertise for your full profit.

Well, I would say that now you know almost everything about me and, in any case, I hope to have the opportunity to tell you what is missing, personally.

Thank you for your interest.

See you soon,
Fabrizio