In the summer of 2008, John "Yoshi" Shyu strolled over to a Corning Life Sciences tabletop demonstration at Purdue University and began examining a HYPERFlask. Seeing his interest, a Corning salesperson tried to pitch Yoshi on the newly launched product. But Yoshi, a doctoral candidate in medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology, wasn't sold.
"You can't convince me to use your product when you're presenting the wrong value proposition. If you tell me the right value proposition, I will buy the product right away," Yoshi told the salesman, explaining in detail what would've convinced him to buy the product.
"The first thing that came out of his mouth after that was, 'Do you want to work for Corning?'" Yoshi recalls with a grin.
He was already planning to take a job as a research scientist in California, but he took Corning up on a round of interviews at Life Sciences headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts. That decision changed Yoshi's career forever and led him to a destination where he could blend his passion for biology research with his outgoing personality and desire to share and expand scientific knowledge.
Growing up globally
Yoshi likes to introduce himself to people by asking them to guess his first language. The premise of the question makes it clear the answer isn't English. But a guess of "Japanese," based on Yoshi's name, would be wrong, too.
"Mi primer idioma es el español," Yoshi says.
Born to a foreign diplomat, Yoshi spent the first 14 years of his life in Latin America.
"Spanish became my first language just because it was the environment that I grew up in," he says, noting that he also became fluent in several other Asian and Latin languages. Yoshi has lived in Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Brazil, Japan, and Taiwan. Yoshi's family resettled in Houston, Texas, where he spent his high school years.
Yoshi pursued a pre-med path at the University of Texas at Austin and then earned a master's degree in neurobiology. He enrolled in a joint doctoral/medical program at Penn State University on full scholarship. But Yoshi realized quickly that medicine wasn't his calling.
"I like the surgery component of the medical field, but I found that I don't love other parts of the field," Yoshi says.
After a few months, he pivoted back to research and spent a year as a research assistant at Austin. Yoshi then began his doctoral program in medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Purdue. But his love of life sciences took him down a road he could have never imagined.
Taking the path less travelled
"Grad school was great. You work 24/7 and you make a lot of discoveries," Yoshi says.
But he stood out from his peers in the lab; he was an extrovert while most other scientists were introverts.
"Every time there were commercial people or salespeople coming into the lab, my colleagues would say, 'Oh, yeah. Go to Yoshi.' It became very simple for me to always talk to salespeople," Yoshi remembers.
Nearing graduation in 2008, Yoshi was ready to begin a job in California as a research scientist when he attended the CLS table top show and the following interviews that changed his path.
With a great deal of reflection, Yoshi realized that Corning might suit him better. He could combine work as a scientist with a commercial role. The job would still be steeped in science, but also offer a productive outlet for Yoshi's outgoing personality. So, he took a job as a field application scientist and has been with Corning for 16 years.
Making Corning home
Yoshi has worked in five roles in CLS, straddling the areas of science and sales. As Global Scientific Applications Director, Yoshi helps CLS figure out how to best tell its story. He works to bridge the gap between what a customer wants and what Corning can produce with its materials science expertise.
Some of that work revolves around vaccine manufacturing. Yoshi also focuses on precision medicine, a field that attempts to improve treatments for cancer using highly personalized testing. He's doing more research in this sales role than he ever could've expected. And sharing those findings is more gratifying than he ever could've imagined.
"You are working on the innovation of products that can change people's lives. And the beauty is that you can actually see advanced improvements before they become public," Yoshi says. "That's where you stop and realize that this job is worth it. This company is worth it."
