A Brief History of Olis, Inc.

The DeSa home in Jefferson, GA, was also the Olis facility from 1977 to 1991

Olis, Inc. (an acronym for On-Line Instrument Systems) was founded in 1974 by Richard J. DeSa and two fellow biochemistry faculty at the University of Georgia. These young men anticipated the potential of computers to laboratory acquisition and analysis and were writing scientific software on the available mini and microcomputers. When the IBM PC came out in 1981, they had already computerized spectrophotometers using NorthStar Horizon computers from the University of Michigan (the first Olis installation) to the University of New Zealand. Amazingly, many of these pre-PC workstations are still used.

Over the years, DeSa became the sole principle and housed the band of programmers, machinist, and other staff in his home in Jefferson, Georgia (pictured above). Labs from Albert Einstein College to Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals found their way to him and saved themselves half the cost of new machines by having Olis modernize and computerize the classic models. In 1993, Olis relocated in Athens, Georgia in a small industrial park. "Bogart" is our post office site, a satellite town on the west side of Athens.

We continue to work with the best dual beam spectrophotometers and fluorimeters from the 1960s through the present and make them better.

View a timeline of firsts experienced at Olis, Inc.

Get directions to our facility.