Carroll Chatham (1914–1983) was an American chemist who developed the flux method for synthesizing emeralds.
Carroll Chatham grew up in San Francisco, California and he developed an interest in gemology at an early age.
[1] His goal was to synthesize diamonds but after an explosion during one of these attempts, which caused his father to make Chatham change his experiments.
This is because before he discovered the flux method, it was not possible to make synthetic emeralds because the different materials had different melting points which caused them to not combine in order to form the gem.
[4] John took over the laboratory and manufacturing side of the company while Tom works on the marketing end.