Marcia Croce-Murphy
Marcia Croce-Murphy is a seasoned regulatory compliance leader with over 30 years of experience in the chemical industry, currently serving as Regulatory Compliance & Registration Principal at Buckman. Based in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, she specializes in product safety, regulatory affairs, and global compliance strategy. Throughout her career, she has developed deep expertise in authoring Safety Data Sheets (SDS), OSHA Hazard Communication standards, and complex regulatory frameworks including TSCA and FIFRA, helping organizations maintain compliance while supporting business continuity.
Croce-Murphy’s career began with an internship at Bayer, where she was first introduced to regulatory affairs and product safety. She went on to hold key roles at organizations including Distar, Archer Daniels Midland, and LANXESS, building a strong foundation across industrial chemicals, agricultural products, and specialty chemicals. Over more than a decade at LANXESS, she expanded her expertise from SDS authoring into TSCA compliance and pesticide regulatory affairs. In her current role at Buckman, she leads a team responsible for regulatory registrations, compliance documentation, and global coordination across regions including Europe, Asia, and South America. Her work includes managing ISO-related processes, supporting formulation changes, and ensuring regulatory approvals for new and existing products.
Known for her collaborative approach and strong relationships with regulatory agencies, Croce-Murphy has earned a reputation for navigating complex approval processes with efficiency and integrity. She has successfully secured critical regulatory approvals, including expedited and conditional registrations that have enabled uninterrupted operations during challenging circumstances. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Penn State University and remains committed to advancing compliance excellence while mentoring teams and supporting innovation within highly regulated industries.
• Penn State University
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to good teaching and having the right questions to ask. You know, I majored in biology with a minor in chemistry, and then got my master's in environmental science, but none of it prepared me to deal with biocides. So good teachers made all the difference. And having the right questions and asking those questions is critical. I know sometimes early in careers, you're hesitant to ask questions because internally you're thinking, oh, they're going to think I'm stupid. But no, you just need to persist and keep going. You can't be afraid to ask what you need to know.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Don't let work rule your life. That advice really hit me hard because I was a driven young lady, and even after I started having children, it was like, okay, I gotta get the work done. Finally, my boss at Lanxess told me, you need to stop and relax. I would lose vacation days, and she was like, no, take all your vacation. That work-life balance needs to be forefront in your mind. You need to know when to stop. You are more than what you are at work - you're a professional at work, but you've got the rest of your life too. You've got your kids, your family, your friends. That was a very good piece of advice that changed how I approach everything.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be tenacious. Don't let others take you for granted or belittle you because you're a woman and they think, oh yeah, well, maybe you don't know what you're talking about. You know, prove yourself. Be persistent. Be confident in your answers. Be forthcoming with all the information and don't hold back. If it's something they don't want to hear, you still have to tell them, right? So be honest and open. And like I said, just be tenacious and stick to your knowledge and your experience. Don't let anyone make you doubt what you know.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
It's definitely the chemical reviews. EPA is going through these priority chemicals, and it's so frustrating from an industry side. These are chemicals that have been in use for longer than I've been alive - over 50, sometimes 70 or 80 years. EPA is re-reviewing them, making industry do all this testing, and then we submit the testing and they forgo it for modeling because the modeling shows a worse case scenario than the actual testing. What's the point of us paying $200,000 or $300,000 for these tests if you're discarding them? The challenge is definitely the mindset of EPA and trying to convince them of the science behind things. They always want to look at the worst case, which I understand, but when you're presented with data that you specifically asked for that we paid for - real-life data - you need to be using that as your primary risk assessment data rather than this modeling which is from the 1970s. It's aged, and they're still relying on that over actual analytical data.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Prioritization is the big thing for me. That's what I've learned over the years - you've got to put out the immediate fires, but you also have to prioritize your daily stuff. The daily stuff that isn't as high priority, you've got to make that a lower priority. You can't burn 20 hours a day working, and that's just not good for you, that's not good for your family, especially one as big as mine. Communication is absolutely key - communication with your team, communication with the business. You've got to be open and honest with them. When it's reporting time and you have a big project given to you in the middle of February but you've got 3 regulatory-driven reports due March 1st that you cannot miss, you have to communicate that you will get it done but it will be after reporting season. That type of communication and prioritization makes all the difference for me. Work-life balance is critical - you only get one life, right? You need to make the most of it.