Arapahoe Chemicals a Boulder pioneer

Editor’s Note: This is the third in an ongoing series of stories tracing the family tree of Boulder County’s entrepreneurial marketplace.

BOULDER — With today’s employment boom, pharmaceutical manufacturer Syntex Chemicals Inc. can’t hire chemists fast enough — often looking outside the state to find them.

But Syntex’s humble beginnings speak of a different time and a different Boulder.

It started in 1946 with brothers Tom Waugh and Richard Waugh, advanced degree-holding chemistry graduates from the University of Colorado. Neither wanted to go back home to Arkansas. So with no…