When it comes to making strategic plans for new instrumentation or assays related to our xMAP® Technology, we rely on people like Chris Haake, Marketing Manager in our Licensed Technologies Group. He joined Luminex in 2016 and holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Weber State University, a master’s in cell biology from the University of Utah, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Q: What are your responsibilities at Luminex?
A: My side of the business is product marketing, which includes strategic plans for commercialization of new instrumentation or new assays, working with our partners, forecasting, researching new products, and helping with new product development.
Q: How did you get onto this career path?
A: After college I got certified as a medtech. Later I became a protein chemist for a laboratory. Some people can be in the lab all the time, but I’m not one of them. I wanted to get out into the field. I moved from Utah to San Antonio and got my first sales job selling consumables to the industrial and clinical markets.
Q: What did you do before this job?
A: Since landing that first sales job at Remel, I have worked at Bayer Diagnostics, VWR, Eppendorf, and QIAGEN. I’ve seen the clinical side and the research side, which has been really useful.
Q: What drew you to Luminex?
A: When I was approached about a job here, I met with the team and did some research into Luminex as well as the technology and its capabilities. I felt it was a very relevant technology that had a real impact in patient care and research by increasing productivity within the lab. There’s nothing else on the market like this technology. That’s what really drove me to join.
Q: If you weren’t a marketing manager at Luminex, where would you be?
A: Everyone in my family has a scientific background, so I can’t imagine doing anything else. You just can’t make any money selling beer at the ballpark, but that’s what I’m going to do when I retire.
Q: If you could solve any clinical or genetic challenge, what would it be?
A: I would focus on Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a debilitating illness that really impacts families in a way that a lot of people don’t understand if they haven’t lived through it.
Q: What is something about you that no one at Luminex knows?
A: I’m terrified of spiders and clowns.
Q: What is your favorite thing to do in Dallas on the weekend?
A: Mostly it’s just hanging out with the family by the pool. I grew up in Utah, where pool season only lasts two months. During the summertime, I love to go to Texas Rangers baseball games at the stadium here in Arlington.
