Our History

Jerry Salan, CEO, and Kerri Salan, Vice President, moved to Connecticut after living in Maryland for several years where Jerry worked for the Department of Navy as a civilian chemical engineer managing several R&D and production programs.  Jerry took a position with Pfizer in Groton, which led to their move to CT. Shortly after, Nalas started as a consulting company for the DoD as Jerry had identified a niche need for chemical process development required for successful scale-up of novel ingredients.

 

Within a year, Nalas had moved into a lab-space at University of Rhode Island and had grown to 3 people. By the next year, the team had moved into the UCONN Technology Incubator Program (TIP) at Avery Point. The expanded lab space allowed the team to grow even more and bring in several more customers in both the defense and private pharmaceutical sectors. By 2012, the team had outgrown the TIP and moved into its current location in Centerbrook, CT. At that time, the company had less than 10 employees and occupied only half of the 20,000 sq ft facility.

 

Today, after substantial support from CT Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), Nalas has grown to nearly 50 full and part time employees. The company now requires the full 20,000 sq ft, which includes a development lab, analytical lab, solid-state chemistry lab, process safety lab, and kilo-scale laboratory.  In 2018, Nalas purchased a 75,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Norwich. Once renovations are complete, Nalas will expand its offerings from services into chemical products and grow to over 60 employees in the next 5 years. 

 

As the State of CT has been a significant contributor towards our responsible growth and expansion, we look forward to giving back to the state, including establishing a STEM program in collaboration with local high schools and universities. More to come!