As one part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Industrial Microbiology, I have been asked to discuss the role of SIM and its members in advancing the field of Natural Products.   I learned at my first SIM meeting in 1954, 55 years ago, that the Society had much to offer.  The breadth of topics discussed was enhancing, far removed from my specialization on antibiotics.  It brought me back to the my first three months in Selman Waksman’s laboratory at Rutgers University where I had been struggling with aspects of sulfur oxidation in soils and the composting of feces in a fashion that would destroy pathogenic microorganisms.  I had had little opportunity to meet with experts in those fields.  Wherever I turned at that 1954 meeting in Gainesville Florida, I found persons working on a wide variety of interesting topics.  I discovered that the points that led to formation of the new society were valid and I was able to offer the new Journal of Applied Microbiology as a site for publication of SIM papers.  Discussion at that meeting fulfilled the members' desire for recognition and opened enhanced possibilities for publication.  In the past 60 years those objectives have been achieved fully at SIM and because of such successes natural products have become a challenging area of research.