About Us: the Proprietors
John Kuhns was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he lived for only a few months before moving to the Kuhns Family farm in Reno County, Kansas, near Arlington. John's father was a cabinet maker and furniture builder. John's mother worked as an office manager for a company in Hutchinson, Kansas.
In the late '50s John and his parents moved to Kansas City, Missouri. His father moved his business, but his mother went to work for Trans World Airlines. It was shorthly after the move to Kansas City, at the family's Christmas gathering (at his maternal grandmother's home in Welch, Oklahoma), John received his first chemistry set and aquarium setup. John says, "aquariums and chemistry have been inextricably entertwined ever since."
John graduated from North Kansas City High School (NKCHS) in 1965. He than attended and graduated from the University of Kansas City - Kansas City (UMKC) where he earned a B.S. in Chemistry. At UMKC, John concluded a study, he had started at his home lab, on the laboratory preparation of permanganic acid, HMnO4. This resulted in John's first technical paper which was presented at a regional meeting of the American Chemical Society. John has held the belief that grade school, middle school and high school students can, and should, do real science. In 7th grade (at Eastgate Junior High), John, studied the effects of human growth hormone on hamsters.
At NKCHS, John was able to take two years of Chemistry. His teacher, Mrs. Francis Reynolds, recognized John's love of Chemistry and other science. John took science and math quite seriously. He was in a group of students that participated in a "new math" program (UMCSM) from the 7th grade through his junior years in high school when the program was discontinued. When John started at UMKC he met with the principle undergraduate professor, Dr. Antonio Sandoval (with who he would later form a business), and convinced the professor that to take the university's freshman chemistry course would be a waste of time. John was given the A.C.S.'s standardized test, and two weeks into his freshman year at UMKC he quized out of the required freshman chamistry and was given an appointment as a lab assistant for Dr. Sandoval. John was given lab and office space in the university's chemistry department, and there he began research, of his own design, on the compounds formed between arsine, AsH3, and mercuric salts (e.g. HgCl2). John learned scientific glassblowing from Dr. Sandoval, and by his 2nd year at UMKC was doing most of the Chemistry Department's glassblowing and repair. This is how John paid for his college education.
John met his wife, Carol, at UMKC, where he was a photographer for the yearbook and she was its literary editor. They moved into their first apartment that was near the university's campus, just west of Volker Park. As he had in all of his houses, John set up a laboratory in the basement of their first house. At this time, too, he and an old friend from high school, Charlie Carlson, formed a business of importing and breeding aquarium fishes for sale to the area's retail aquarium shops. The business was called "Fish, Ltd.". This business quickly took over the basement in John and Carol's home.
Eventually, John and Carol moved into a home south of Research Hospital . There John, again, set up his laboratory and continued to develope aquarium drugs and chemicals. Just two years before moving to this house, John and Carol went into business with another couple, and opened a tropical fish shop at 49th Street and Main, in Kansas City. It was called "Piscean Fantasy". When they expanded their store and remodled the store's basement, John built his laboratory there. It was here he started developing drugs and chemicals for treating diseases and water quality problems he encountered in his business.
Eventually, John's aquarium products grew into a small business that consumed most of his time. He then, along with his professor from UMKC, formed a new business that was located at 72nd and Prospect, in Kansas City. This was Montseratt Educational and Scientific Company (MESCO). This company closed and John went to work as the research director for General Drug & Chemical Corporation (GD&C). John worked for GD&C from 1974 (when he and Carol's daughter, Ginger, was born) to 1982. It was here that John continued his work on aquarium chemicals, and here is where he produced a formula they marketed as "Professional Water Conditioner" and which later, after securing Kordon Corporation of Hayward, California, as a distributor, became known as Kordon's "NovAqua".
Today, John is a successful scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. He still maintains a home laboratory where he still developes chemicals and processes for aquariums. He also works with natural dyes and essential oils. He also makes heirloom-quality chemistry sets in his woodworking shop and laboratory.
Back when John was still in grade school he and three friends, Charlie Carlson, Don Kuehl and Reed Black, all who had home laboratories, acquired chemicals, glassware and equipment from Griffin's Apothecary, which at that time, was located on Petticoat Lane in downtown Kansas City. The memories of that wonderful old store has inspired John to this day. It is John's belief that such businesses, dedicated to science, can inspire young scientists. Therefore, H.M.S. Beagle...a voyage of science discovery was begun.