Advisors

Alec Johnson

Dr. Alec Johnson is a tenured Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University Of St. Thomas Opus College Of Business in St. Paul Minnesota.  Dr. Johnson has a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering, a Masters degree in International Business and a PhD in Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He has 15 years teaching in a University setting, 8 with the University of Saint Thomas.  He has expertise in business development process, strategy, and financing of early stage companies.  Dr. Johnson’s has experience of deep vertical consulting with development stage companies, ranging from music academies to medical devices to software to basic retail.  His research includes financial behavior in small business, performance/industry linkages in small business and small business bootstrapping.  Dr. Johnson has been published numerous times on these and other topics.  He is involved in community relationships such as Junior Achievement and the Minneapolis Urban League and is the owner of AC Johnson Photography.

Dr. Alan Kahn

Alan R. Kahn is a Life Fellow of the IEEE who has dedicated 55 years to the application of biomedical engineering to clinical uses.  He has generated a variety of inventions, 21 patents, and 130 scientific publications.  He was a founder and served as the third president of the Alliance for Engineering in Medicine Biology, and chaired its international conference in 1973 held here in Minneapolis.

In the late ’50s Dr. Kahn developed biomedical monitoring instrumentation packages for studying the physiology of pilots in high-performance aircraft, in the X-15 rocket aircraft, and for the project Mercury Aerospace program.  During the ’60s he invented and patented the first ECG monitoring electrodes of the type which are now widely used in medical practice.  In the ’70s, Dr. Kahn joined Medtronic, Inc. as Senior Vice President, where he directed the company’s research engineering, including the development of the first neurological stimulation products for the control of pain.  In the ’80s, Dr. Kahn  developed models for human information processing, and published a book on understanding human cognitive differences and continues to teach this material in a continuing education program at University of Minnesota.  Dr. Kahn continues  today inventing, patenting, and publishing.