On this 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation, I find myself thinking not just about America’s history — but about my own family’s remarkable place within it.

My father, Algird Gudaitis, came to America fleeing one of the darkest chapters in modern history. Having survived both German and Soviet occupation during World War II, he made the courageous decision to leave everything behind and seek a life defined by freedom rather than fear. When his ship passed through New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty came into view, he was overcome with emotion — a feeling of pure, overwhelming possibility. He had arrived.

“He stepped off that ship at Ellis Island with a sponsor’s address, an apartment waiting, and $10 in his pocket. That was it. That was the foundation of everything Aculabs is today.” – Dauna Gudaitis, Aculabs Co-Founder

The early years were not easy. He worked a series of temporary jobs — whatever work he could find — as he built his footing in an unfamiliar country. But he never stopped moving forward. Eventually he found stable work in Kentucky, a place that gave him something precious: the ability to work and continue his education simultaneously. From there, he made his way to Philadelphia, where he earned his doctoral degree — not through privilege or connection, but through persistence, sacrifice, and an immigrant’s unrelenting conviction that education was the key that unlocked every other door.

And then came a chapter that, in hindsight, feels almost fated. My father had the extraordinary opportunity to work alongside Wallace Coulter during the early development of what would become the Coulter Counter — the automated blood cell analyzer that revolutionized clinical laboratory medicine and remains the gold standard in hematology testing to this day. That a wartime refugee who arrived in America with $10 would find himself at the forefront of one of the most consequential innovations in the history of medical diagnostics is, to me, the very definition of what this country makes possible.

A Note on the Coulter Counter — Invented by Wallace H. Coulter in the late 1940s and commercialized in the 1950s, the Coulter Counter transformed laboratory medicine by enabling rapid, automated counting and sizing of blood cells. It is found in virtually every clinical laboratory in the world today. Algird Gudaitis was there at its beginning.

He went on to hold a position at Prudential Life Insurance — adding corporate experience to a résumé that already included wartime survival, academic achievement, and a front-row seat at a revolution in medical science. But something was stirring. Having escaped the grip of occupation in Europe, my father had not come to America to spend his life answering to someone else’s agenda. He had come here to be free.

In 1972, my father and my mother made a decision together: they would build something of their own. They would not be beholden to corporate culture. They would be independent — answerable only to the patients they served and the standards they set for themselves. That decision became Aculabs.

It is a decision that could only have been made in America. The freedom to risk everything on your own vision, the opportunity to build something from nothing, the right to chart your own course — these are not small things. To my father, who had lived under regimes that crushed exactly that kind of independence, they were everything.

Over 50 years later, Aculabs serves skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities, and post-acute care centers across six states. My mother, Dauna, remains part of the business to this day — a living testament to the commitment she and my father made together more than half a century ago. Every test we run, every result we deliver, every patient we serve — it is all an extension of that founding decision, and of the country that made it possible.

This Fourth of July, I am profoundly grateful — for this country and the extraordinary freedom it offers, for the clients and patients we are privileged to serve, for the remarkable team that carries my parents’ vision forward every single day, and for a man who passed the Statue of Liberty with nothing but ten dollars and a dream, and — alongside the woman he loved — turned it into something that outlasted him.

That is America. That is what we celebrate today.
Wishing you and yours a safe, joyful, and meaningful Independence Day. 🎆

Peter Gudaitis
President, Aculabs Inc.