After getting conventional degrees in chemical engineering, Mr. Brian discovered the medical device side in 1984 from Professor William Dorson, who was conducting research at that Harvard of the Southwest, Arizona State University. Although Ben's previous experience with extracorporeal blood flow had been limited to the Rugby pitch, he was able to complete his doctorate on a methodology to remove bilirubin from blood for the treatment of neonatal jaundice. Leaving academia for greener pastures in ‘89, Ben took a research position with COBE laboratories outside Denver. In between the discovery of skiing and kids, Ben worked at COBE on development projects for selective blood filters, membrane oxygenators and eventually led the implementation of COBE’s biomaterials platform. As the marketing group found coagulation cascade discussions with surgeons too intimidating, Ben made a move to “the dark side” to cover that role in marketing. In ‘98, he left the shadow of the Coors Brewery for the rolling hills of Central NJ, where besides having his sanity questioned, he took a job as a Strategic Marketing Director for the Ethicon division of J&J. There he was responsible for global strategic and market opportunity assessments for the Ethicon Franchise - basically where should the company invest in emerging technologies? Late in ‘99, he was conducting due diligence on Cardiovention, a bay area start-up looking to revolutionize cardiac surgery. Intrigued and excited about the potential, he left J&J for the very affordable confines of Silicon Valley. In his role as Vice President of R&D, he basically stayed out of the way of the development of a minimally invasive circulatory support system, which received several national design awards. Ready to emerge on the global scene, Cardiovention unexpectedly had to table plans and pursue litigation against a large Midwestern company, which will remain nameless. Late in ‘03, Radiant Medical was desperate enough to hire Ben for a major redesign of their catheter based temperature management system. As a cruel joke, he assumed responsibility for the Operations group as well in ‘05. With the new system complete, Radiant is back again on the rise with two pivotal IDE trials of therapeutic hypothermia. Ben has a couple patents here and there, an honorary doctorate from Rose-Hulman, and hopes to hit the 25 gallon blood donation milestone at the Stanford Blood Center this spring.
