Martin's industrial experiences led him to believe that a small Company with a "can-do" philosophy, unimpeded by external interference, could compete very effectively with much larger organisations. To meet the requirement of independence, the business has always been self-financing, which was possible because of its origin as a part-time activity. The business was also kept within Martin's house for the first couple of years after he went full-time, by which time we had done well enough to buy our own premises in Faversham. We have since taken proud ownership of a working farm (pictured) where we now operate the business in several converted barns. Martin's expertise in optical measurement techniques was already well known from his previous research on intracellular calcium measurement in molluscan neurones using metallochromic indicators, so we were well placed to become involved with the emerging field of fluorescence indicators. Fluorescence is still our mainstay, but we are steadily diversifying into other areas as well.

Jeremy Graham (Jez) joined us early in 1992. Until then, Martin had been doing all the design work by himself, and Adrian and James did the building. Jez, a chemistry graduate from Bath University, was taken on originally to help Martin with research and development. Since then he has also become increasingly involved in customer technical support and is now the closest thing that Cairn has to a general manager. As well as becoming Company Secretary in 1998 (and more recently a Director), he is trying to find time to complete his MBA dissertation. Having been brought up in the Northwest of England he is a fervent Liverpool FC fan, which ensures a (slightly) friendly rivalry with James and Chris, who for some unaccountable reason support Arsenal. Along with Martyn Reynolds he is likely to be your primary contact for advice on imaging in general and CCD cameras in particular.

Adrian Hawkes started working for us in 1988, while Martin still had his industrial position. He had broken his leg playing football, and was unable to carry on with his previous job, so Martin set him to work building circuit boards and generally looking after the business during the day while he went off to do his own day job. Adrian's first love has always been mechanical engineering, and he started an engineering apprenticeship when he left school. Britain still had some vestiges of an industrial base in those days, but once the economic policies of the early 1980's had put that right, he (like many other apprentices) had to find other things to do for a living. Adrian looked after our production for several years, but more recently, we have purchased a variety of machine tools, and he is now back in his element operating those (having completed a City and Guilds engineering course). For large production runs, our mechanical engineering is usually contracted out. However, small volume work and especially prototyping are now carried out "in house".

By the summer of 1990 we were sufficiently busy that we needed some extra help, so we took on James Kerin, who was then still at school and looking for something to do during his summer holidays. He has been here ever since, and continued his studies on a part-time basis during his first few years with us. Shortly after that, he became our official Sales Manager, taking care of customer requirements and liaising with distributors. James also works closely with Jez assisting in the day-to-day running of the company, in particular being the driving force behind our Investors in People accreditation in 2005. The similarity of his name to the Company's name causes endless confusion to our suppliers, and we often receive letters and packages addressed to James Cairn, or - more worryingly - to Kerin Research. If you should receive an invoice payable to Kerin Research then please let us know!

Dallas Rush (Dal) joined us a few months after Jez. He had been about to become a casualty of the policies of his then employer, and Martin offered him a job in a moment of weakness one evening when they were having a drink in the local pub (drinking is becoming a very expensive pastime nowadays). Dal has extensive electronic engineering repair and test experience, and he looks after these things for Cairn now. He has also taken over much of the general building in a practical and supervisory role.

Andrew Hill, an electronic engineering graduate from the University of Kent Medical Electronics Department, has been with us since July 1995. He is involved, with Martin, in the electronic design of new products, the development of new hardware and the upgrading of existing circuit boards. He was also responsible for developing the Windows version of our fluorescence software, and is probably the best point of contact for OEM software development issues. He is currently in the process of fitting embedded controllers into much of our equipment and convincing anyone who will listen that the future is Linux.

Neil Sims, now our Production Manager, joined us in 1996. Neil comes from an engineering background, and in addition to some computer and design work, now takes personal responsibility for much of our specialist manufacture. He also looks after many of our component ordering and product shipping arrangements, and is involved in the continual refinement of our product range. He shares responsibility with Dallas for the rapid turnaround of system repairs to ensure that our customers have the minimum possible downtime.

Wendy Jones broke a long-standing Cairn tradition at the end of 1998, by becoming our first female employee. Wendy keeps the books, pays the bills and chases our invoices for us. She has already learned how to strike terror into the hearts of our customers' finance departments, while simultaneously assuring our suppliers that "the cheque is in the post" and will arrive by Friday. Wendy also excels in unarmed combat, so we have to stay on the right side of her as well.

Dr. Martyn Reynolds joined us in November 2000. He had seen the job vacancy on this web site and in a moment of madness decided to apply. Martyn did his first degree in physics, and then obtained a Ph.D. with Prof. Peter McNaughton on calcium conductance regulation in photoreceptors, followed by postdoctoral research on calcium regulation in a number of other unsuspecting tissues. This background, together with his strong interest in the technical aspects of research, made him uniquely well qualified for the position, leaving us with no plausible excuse to turn him away. As well as providing expert advice to customers, Martyn is also rapidly getting involved in our R & D programme, and shares responsibility with Jez for system installation.

Before joining Cairn Domonique Harris (Dom) had a followed a diverse career path incorporating marine biology, hairdressing, carpentry and international espionage (OK we lied about the last one).

We originally took her on as a part time production assistant, but she was offered (and foolishly accepted) a full time position when her workload became indefensible. She has more recently combined her production duties with that of Quality Manager, and has dragged us through the ISO accreditation process with flying colours. She is still heavily involved in production, and is responsible for all aspects of the manufacture of our Optosplit image splitter.

Gary Richards is yet another home-grown product, who we met through his father, a local building legend, who has constructed much of our current and previous premises. Clearly the concept of honest hard work didn't appeal to Gary, as rather than following in the family footsteps he decided to go to Kent University instead, from which he graduated in June 2001 with a degree in Computer Systems Engineering. He's been working with us full-time since then, although again he has only himself to blame, as he'd already been helping us out during his holidays for a couple of years. He is now our IT manager and runs all the company computer systems as well as being largely to blame for structuring and coding this website. Along with Andy, Gary is sure that one day Linux will take over the world...

Chris Kirby joined us in 2004 to help with many areas of the business, particularly sales, quality control, customer support, and IT. His previous work experience was mainly in the quality control department of a high tech. manufacturing company in the printing industry, and he was (and still is) studying for qualifications in computing. As with previous recruits, within a few months of Chris joining us we wondered how we had coped before he joined, and were left with the usual answer, we hadn't.

Mark Henson joined the team in April 2007 to help with all areas of the business. A qualified tool-maker and professional artist we are putting him to good use, and are already wondering how we got by without him.