Peter Frasca, Ph.D. was born in Floridia, Sicily, Italy.  He came to the US in 1954 with his family. Peter was just nine years old when he embarked on the ten-day journey by sea, and arrived in the New York Harbor a few days before Christmas.  The Frasca family settled in Hartford, CT and Peter left in 1963 to pursue his University studies.


Peter attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as a scholarship student in Troy, New York, where he received his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral in Physics. In 1975, Peter joined Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA as Research Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Director of the Orthopedic Research Laboratory.  He later obtained a secondary appointment in the Department of Anatomy.  He was able to obtain National Institutes of Health funding for many of his research efforts including the Research Career Development Award (RCDA) and simultaneously obtained the first scanning electron microscope on the Jefferson campus.

Peter came into the Asbestos testing industry in 1981 when he launched Electron-Microscopy Service Laboratories (EMSL).  Peter took the current methods and then developed new faster methods with a JEOL 100C Analytical TEM and a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).  The approach was not yet regulated, but Peter proved that Asbestos was in fact detected by SEM when Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM) reported it as Non-Detect. At the time, samples analyzed by electron microscopy took 5 to 7 weeks to produce a result, which was an economic hardship to reopen schools and office buildings.  Peter further revolutionized the TEM Asbestos testing market by reducing the turnaround time (TAT) to 14 days, 3 days, 24 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours, and 3 hours which is known as the industry standard today.