CEM was established in 1978 by a chemist, an electrical engineer and a mechanical engineer, who designed and produced the first microwave laboratory instrumentation - a moisture/solids analyzer. The chemist, Michael J. Collins, had written his dissertation on microwave spectroscopy and felt certain that there was a market for microwave instrumentation that could produce rapid, accurate results. He was right. In the true spirit of an entrepreneurial inventor, Collins and his colleagues worked from a small building in Matthews, North Carolina, where they helped pioneer the field of microwave chemistry. Within a short time, CEM built a much larger manufacturing facility and began to pursue the international market. Today, the company has grown to include 4 international subsidiaries, a worldwide network of distributors and product lines that now encompass instrumentation for life sciences, analytical applications, and process control.