Triarch Incorporated Information

Triarch Incorporated offers superior prepared microscope slides, quality microscopes from Swift and Leica and educational digital images. Triarch Incoporated, a third generation family business , was started in 1926 by Dr. George H. Conant. George grew up on a farm in the small town of Ripon, Wisconsin. George decided to pursue his botanical interests in Madison at the University of Wisconsin. A visiting professor, Dr. Gilbert Smith of Stanford, observed young George’s work on a rapid process for staining botanical slides. The story goes that Dr. Smith was so impressed with the technique that he called George late at night to entreat him to pursue commercial slide production. George’s success allowed him to finance the completion of his Doctorate in Plant Pathology in 1926. After experiencing four years of an assistant professorship (while producing Botanical slides on the side) at the University of Pennsylvania-Philadelphia, George decided to return home to Ripon, Wisconsin. In 1929, he opened “Triarch Botanical Slides,” in a house on Ripon’s Historic Watson Street. This establishment was the sole address of the business for 18 years. Finally, Triarch Botanical Slides was able to add histological, embryological and zoological slides to the catalog with the employment of Dr. Carl Waldemar Hagquist in 1951. Following in his father’s footsteps Paul Conant also completed a B.S. in Botany at the University of Wisconsin. He started working at Triarch in 1957 and took over the family business when his father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Paul Conant, a gentle and hardworking man, ran Triarch Incorporated for 55 years. As a result of his dedication, he has left a legacy of knowledge to science education. For example, in 2006, he established the TRIARCH "Botanical Images" Student Travel Award. Furthermore Cathy Conant, his daughter,continues to proudly support this tradition.