Work Experience:

I grew up in rural Iowa. I worked on farms most of my youth doing everything that one does on a farm, from milking cows and slopping hogs to driving and repairing anything with wheels.

It’s a great problem solving environment.  If you don’t know how to weld a broken piece of equipment, learn or starve.

I worked a lot of part time and temporary jobs in Des Moines while I was in high school, burger flipping and ice cream scooping.

The first two summers of high school  were spent working family farms in Diagonal, but between my junior and senior year, summer 1971, I bicycled from Iowa to Colorado with Mark Tallman, a high school and life long friend. 

It changed my life.

I discovered yoga, bicycle touring, and an appetite for adventure.

My raison d’etre  became, the next adventure.

Summer of 1972, after high school, was Europe with another high school buddy, Mike Deay, to hitch hike around for the summer.

Back in the states in the fall I went to heavy equipment operating school, so I could work for Bechtel or one of the other big foreign contractors overseas, then went to California looking for work.

The next summer ,1973, I spent traveling with a carnival through the eastern U.S.  as a barker.  It was an adventure, and good public speaking experience.

The next summer, 74, came enlistment in the Navy, it was better than being drafted into the Army.

During  my formal Naval training; boot camp, Hospital Corps School, Pharmacy School, and EMT School, I fell in love with medicine, as a career.

I wanted to be a family doctor, so my nights and weekends were filled with night school.

After leaving the Navy in October of 1978  I went  straight into Pre-Med at UCSD without a break.  I ended up with a degree in Biochemistry from the Chemistry Department,  focused on molecular biology, but did not get into medical school.

Which broke my heart.  I had given up my freedom, my love of travel and adventure for a career in medicine, and had been rejected. 

“Let me tell you about heartache,

and the death of God.”

Jim Morrison

Taking a page from Forest Gump, I spent the summer  of 1981 riding my bicycle across the United States, from Port Angeles, Washington to Washington, D.C. I just rode, alone, until my heart healed.

The next fall, back at U.C.S.D. I started my biotech career at Syntro Corporation, a new biotech startup, and became a Big Brother.  Even if I couldn’t be a doctor, I could still contribute.

During the bicycle trip the summer of 81, I remembered the three life goals I had set for myself back in high school; keep learning forever, make enough money to take care of my family, and do something for others.

A career as a doctor seemed to fill all of those goals. But during hundreds of hours of solitary pedaling I realized that I could achieve all of those goals in any number of different ways.  There were an innumerable number of paths that included lifelong learning, a solid income, and contributed to the lives of others.  It gave me a sense of peace to know that I didn’t need to be a doctor to achieve my goals.

I worked  at Syntro  part time the last year of university, then full time three more years after graduation.  I was proud of being part of the genetic revolution and my contributions to projects like; natural insecticides, single cell protein supplements,  conversion of waste to ethanol, multivalent animal vaccines, and my own project, macromolecular polymer engineering for novel fibers and plastics.

I stayed with Big Brothers until my little brother, Robbie Getrost, got too old for the program, then kept seeing him on weekends until I got married in 1986.  I don’t see him often anymore, he lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his family, and I hardly ever get back to the mid-west.

But we still write every so often, and I always look forward to hearing how he is.

1981-1985 Syntro Corporation- Lab tech to Manager of Business Development

1985 to 1986- Boehringer Mannheim Biochemicals-Technical Sales Representative

1986-1987 Stratagene Cloning Systems- Director of Marketing and Sales

1987-2003 Invitrogen Corporation-Founder, President, CEO, Chairman of the Board

2003-Present- Walkabout

2009- Married Alison C. (Stewart) Turner

2010-Founded Global Reef Project

2011-Son, Taggart Scot Turner, born

I am still on walkabout, its just a little different now, living with Alison and Tag, traveling the world on a boat.