Our Staff
The staff at CPMICRO are professionally trained, with two having exceptionally long and varied experience in Microbiology.
One of the Owner/Directors is Christopher Panter, B.A. (Hon.), B.Sc. (Agric.) and M.Sc. (Agric.). Both agricultural degrees are from the University of Alberta, specialising in Soil Science and Soil Microbiology. His work background includes seven years in CSR Research Laboratories, East Roseville as an industrial microbiologist with involvement in microbiological aspects of sugar processing and growing, chemicals, distillery, building materials, mining and new business research. This was followed by teaching for two years at Hawkesbury Agricultural College, Richmond, primarily in food microbiology. A six year period was spent as a Research Fellow in the Department of Medical Entomology at Sydney University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, investigating and developing use of the newly discovered fungus Culicinomyces for microbiological control of mosquitoes. The next 20 years was spent as a Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Monash University Gippsland, establishing and teaching courses in general microbiology, food and industrial microbiology, medical microbiology and environmental biology. Postgraduate students were supervised for research theses involving environmental and food microbiology. Research work involved biological control of mosquitoes, compost microbiology, microbiology of thermophiles, and microbiologically induced corrosion of steel. Journal and conference publications over this time included papers and presentations on microbiological control and on microbial corrosion. Chris then moved back into the soil microbiology area and worked for seven years at SWEP Analytical Laboratories. He was Managing Director of SWEP for the latter three years prior to leaving to establish CPMICRO.Jill Gebler, (B. App. Sci, GIAE), (Dip. Dairy Tech, Massey, NZ), is Senior Microbiologist at CPMICRO. Jill brings to the company many years of experience and knowledge in both Dairy and Food Microbiology. Jill worked initially as Laboratory Manager for South Eastern Milk Products and then as manager of the NATA Certified Murray Goulburn Co-Op’s Food Safety Laboratory at Yarram, Victoria. The laboratory was set up to test final product and environmental samples for the presence of Salmonella. Over the years the scope of the work increased to include a range of pathogens including Listeria, Bacillus cereus, Coagulase Positive Staphylococci, Escherichia coli 0157 and bacterial enterotoxins, as well as food spoilage organisms. With the advent of Rapid Methods and automation in microbiology, Jill was involved with Bio-Enterprises Pty Ltd in trials of their TECRA ELIZA kits. She presented the data from these studies at international conferences in Europe and the United States. She has also spoken to regulatory bodies and at conferences in SE Asia. During her time at Yarram, she employed and mentored young local microbiology graduates from Monash’s Gippsland Campus. On retirement from MG and moving to Melbourne, Jill worked for 10 years as Microbiology Lab Manager at SWEP Analytical Laboratories.
Norma Panter is the other co-owner/Director of CPMICRO. Norma is a former long term school teacher and acting principal who is now the Administration Manager of CPMICRO and handles marketing.
Ashica Sood is a Biotechnologist and is a recent valued addition to our laboratory. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from Bangalore University and a Master of Science in Microbial Gene Technology from Madurai Kamaraj University, India. She has 3 years experience working as a Research Assistant in India. After moving to Australia, she obtained a Certificate IV in Laboratory technique from Lab Tech Training Pty Ltd., Fitzroy, Melbourne. Before joining CPMICRO she was employed at SWEP Analytical Laboratories as a Laboratory Technician.