Chester (Chet) Sutula obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts in 1954 and his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa in 1959. He worked for eight years for Marathon Oil Company, Littleton, Colorado, performing research on the influence of capillarity and surface chemical forces in secondary oil production, and, the structural properties of microemulsions using small angle x-ray scattering.  In 1967, he joined Ames Company, a division of Miles Laboratories, Inc. in Elkhart, Indiana, and became its research director in 1970. His team at Ames performed fundamental and applied research on the properties of solid, porous analytical devices, such as, Lateral flow device (strip test) for urinalysis, blood chemistry, microbiology and quantitative, simple measurement of blood glucose for daily use by diabetics.  In 1976, he joined Ortho Diagnostics Systems, a division of Johnson & Johnson, Inc., as vice president of R&D and worked on new systems for blood typing, high volume immunoassays, and tests to detect hepatitis, pregnancy and blood coagulation disorders.
In 1981, with his wife, Jane, and a technology partner in Europe, Dr. Sutula founded Agdia, Inc., Elkhart, Indiana, to develop and provide reliable and practical diagnostics for the detection of plant pathogens.
Dr. Sutula has served on American Phytopathological Society (APS) committees for Industry, for Virology, and for Diagnostics and has been a reviewer for Plant Disease. He has authored several articles and many posters and presentations dealing with the detection of plant pathogens.