Senior Drinking Water Analytical Chemist EPA Methods & Scope Expansion

Schedule: Monday-Friday, approximately 8:30 a.m.

-5:30 p.m. (flexible)

Pay: $24-$31 per hour, depending on directly relevant experience

Location: Olympia, Washington

Job Type: Full-time, on-site

Schedule: Monday-Friday, approximately 8:30 a.m.

-5:30 p.m. (flexible)

Pay: $24-$31 per hour, depending on directly relevant experience

Vanguard Laboratory is a growing analytical and microbiological testing laboratory in Olympia, Washington. We test drinking water, environmental samples, food and agricultural products, supplements, peptides, research chemicals, and pharmaceutical materials. Vanguard is accredited by the Washington State Department of Ecology and to ISO/IEC 17025 through A2LA.

We are expanding our drinking-water program and need an experienced analytical chemist to implement additional EPA-approved methods, perform routine testing, and add new capabilities to our accredited scope.

The Senior Drinking Water Analytical Chemist will spearhead the expansion of Vanguard Laboratory's drinking-water testing capabilities.

This is a hands-on position combining routine sample analysis with method implementation, verification or validation, regulatory documentation, quality-control development, staff training, and accreditation scope additions. The successful candidate will take new methods from initial evaluation through routine production.

This is not a purely research or administrative role. The person hired must perform routine testing, have strong wet-bench skills, and take ownership of expanding our scope.

• Evaluate our current scope, instrumentation, client needs, and opportunities for additional drinking-water testing.
• Recommend and prioritize new parameters based on regulatory requirements, technical feasibility, demand, equipment needs, and laboratory capacity.
• Select appropriate EPA-approved or other regulator-approved drinking-water methods.
• Lead methods from feasibility assessment through routine implementation and accredited scope addition.
• Establish requirements for containers, preservation, holding times, preparation, calibration, quality control, reporting limits, and data review.
• Develop SOPs, worksheets, calculation templates, QC criteria, training materials, and data-review procedures.
• Perform verification or validation studies, including demonstrations of capability, precision, accuracy, recovery, selectivity, sensitivity, calibration performance, reporting limits, robustness, carryover, and sample stability, as applicable.
• Establish method detection limits, reporting limits, and control limits.
• Complete proficiency testing and prepare documentation for Washington State Department of Ecology scope additions.
• Respond to technical questions, assessment findings, and corrective-action requests.
• Train and qualify analysts, transfer methods into production, and monitor ongoing performance.

• Prepare and analyze drinking-water samples using approved procedures.
• Perform weighing, volumetric preparation, dilution, digestion, extraction, filtration, titration, colorimetric analysis, gravimetric analysis, and reagent preparation, as applicable.
• Prepare standards, blanks, fortified samples, duplicates, matrix spikes, calibration checks, laboratory control samples, and other required QC.
• Operate and maintain applicable equipment, including pH and conductivity meters, turbidimeters, UV-visible spectrophotometers, ion chromatographs, TOC analyzers, discrete analyzers, ICP-OES, ICP-MS, GC/MS, LC/MS, or related systems.
• Review sample condition, preservation, collection time, holding time, chain-of-custody documentation, and test requests.
• Set up analytical batches and review calibration…