Laurence Harris, Treasurer

Laurence Harris is the Treasurer of the Seattle Chapter of the Chefs Collaborative. He is a "confirmed foodie", and enjoys spending creative time in the kitchen. His present day-job has him doing Software Engineering for Embedded Controls, and he is currently involved in a Distributed Autonomous Agents Artificial Intelligence project for electric power distribution system control. This award winning AI software has enjoyed increasing acceptance in the power distribution industry over the last ten years.

In 1981, when he was working as a control systems engineer for a large confectionery manufacturer, Laurence was trained as a Sensory Evaluation Generalist, with additional specialized training and experience in chocolate flavor evaluation. Subsequently he spent over fifteen years managing a successful contract software engineering firm, and during this time also led the development and marketing of a profitable high-end image processing and statistics software package for support of Sensory Evaluation. The software was distributed world-wide, earning international recognition as best in its class.

Laurence is a graduate of Purdue University and has worked his entire career with computers and software with several different companies. He has continuing interests in economics, entrepreneurship, botany, chemistry and biochemistry and food production and processing, and also enjoys bicycling, sea kayaking and mountain hiking. Because Laurence has gluten intolerance he has studied the science, the food technology and the issues thoroughly, and created the website http://No-Gluten.Org to assist those who are interested in learning more about gluten-free living.