Joseph Gregar

Joe came to Argonne in 1980 and is a world-renowned craftsman. He has taught scientific glassblowing all over the country and has mentored many freshman scientific glassblowers. He has 38 years of industrial and research glassblowing experience and offers many specialties to the lab including expertise in cryogenics, high vacuum, distillation, and quartz fabrication. Joe is continuously attending and instructing at national and local scientific glassblowing conferences to keep up to date with the latest technologies and advances.

Joe is a Past President and an active member of the American Scientific Glassblowers Society.

Our resident glassblower is also a co-inventor of the award winning Gregar Extractor. This invention won the prestigious R&D 100 award from R&D magazine in 1999 for being one of the top 100 innovative inventions of that year.

My experience and professional training is in scientific glassblowing and I have been practicing this form of glassblowing for 39 years. I'm a fourth generation scientific glassblower having started my career in our family business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have worked at 3 other glassblowing companies in the Midwest. I have been at Argonne National Laboratory for the last 25 years. Although I have not had any extensive artistic glassblowing training, I have adventured into the artistic field in several different areas all using glass as the artistic medium. These include Lamp working (which you see today), Hot-Tank or Off-Hand Glassblowing, (both solid paperweights and hollow vases), neon and a topic you will see today, The Art of Glass Bead Making.

Email address: jgregar@anl.gov