Brenden Allen is Hooked on Chemistry

It was a surreal and satisfying moment when the two primary passions of Brenden Allen — fishing and chemistry — came together one day at Lake of the Ozarks.

“My most memorable job was being in the Lake of the Ozarks dam where they were doing a generator rebuild. They needed somebody to come out and do on-site chemical testing and collect samples to bring back to the lab for further analysis,” recalls Brenden, Manager of Chemical Testing at IIA’s St. Louis laboratory. “I have fished the Lake of the Ozarks many times over many years, so it was cool to go 75’ underwater and see what holds back the lake I’ve been fishing.”

His desire to dive beneath the surface — to the building blocks of life — may be what drew him to chemistry in the first place, along with the encouragement of his high school teacher and mentor.

“Mrs. Sarah Jones really helped get me interested in chemistry in high school. I will never forget her. I owe her dearly,” says Brenden. “I love that with chemistry you can reverse engineer and find out what something is, or you can engineer something and do research and development and find out how to improve quality.”

Brenden went on to earn his American Chemical Society (ACS) Certified Chemistry degree from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. As a college student he also found time to indulge his lifelong love of fishing.

As a collegiate fisherman, he competed nationally against individuals who would go on to become professional fishermen. In his senior year, Brenden claimed 11th place in a competition that drew 200 boats from schools across the country.

While in college, Brenden also worked part-time at the local YMCA as an assistant coach and referee in basketball and volleyball. There, he found another mentor in Jimmy Ursey, who pointed him in the direction of Industrial Inspection & Analysis after graduation.

In the summer of 2021, Brenden happily accepted a calibration job in IIA’s St. Louis laboratory, in the hopes that he could eventually work his way into a chemistry role. (He did so within a matter of months).

The diversity of work was one of the things that attracted him to the St. Louis lab. And it remains his favorite thing about his job today.

“At some chemistry labs, you work with monotonous procedures and products every day. I didn’t want to do that. I want to stay on my toes and learn new things every day,” he says. “At IIA, different companies, industries, parts and products come through the door every day – and that’s something you’re not going to get anywhere else. In our chemistry department, we might run 10 different instruments in a single day.”

When he’s not applying his chemistry expertise to real-world industrial issues, Brenden enjoys playing and coaching volleyball at the YMCA. But more than likely, you’ll find him on the water. Kentucky Lake has become his favorite place to cast a line.

“Fishing is my favorite thing to do,” says Brenden, who is hooked on tournament fishing and also coaches the Bunker Hill/Staunton High School’s fishing team. “I’ve been on and around the water my entire life. There is actually a photo of me in a car seat in a boat when I was just a few months old.”

Since his own career journey was shaped by important mentors in his life, Brenden is proud to play that role for others today — at work and at play. He encourages new employees to bring creativity to unique testing challenges and reminds them that failure IS an option.

“I tell new employees to go for it if they have a testing idea for a random project. If you fail, you fail. It’s going to happen in our field. It’s science,” he says. “It’s how you recover from that failure that matters. What did you learn? Did we miss a step? Is the procedure going to work?”

As an angler, a chemist and a coach, Brenden brings his best to every moment.

“I’m passionate about things,” he says. “I push myself super hard to go above and beyond. This is a blessing and a curse all at the same time.”