The volunteers highlighted below represent a sampling of the quality volunteers that have played a role in developing DesignWise Medical. Those individuals below have had an especially important impact on getting us to where we are. Our thanks go out to all these and our entire pool of volunteers.
We couldn’t do this without you!!
Annette Kaiser
Ms. Kaiser brings to DesignWise Medical over 20 years senior financial management experience in the for-profit manufacturing industry. Ms. Kaiser recently retired from the CFO position at Capital Safety Limited, the market leading international manufacturer of Fall Protection equipment. Ms. Kaiser also worked with Century Lincoln ( a division of Pentair), Hartzell Manufacturing Inc. and KPMG. She brings extensive experience in all areas of financial, human resource and legal management. Ms. Kaiser has a CPA, an MBA from the University of Houston and a BS in Accounting from St Cloud State University.
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.
Ben Valley
Ben graduated from the University of St. Thomas in the Spring of 2009 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He originally started working with DesignWise Medical during his senior year on the OPOD project for the Senior Design program at St. Thomas. After graduation Ben continued to work with DesignWise Medical, volunteering as a Mechanical Design Engineer and continued to make improvements on the OPOD project. Ben is now working on a new type of endotracheal tube meant for neo-natal infants.
Janine Johnson
Janine Johnson is a volunteer project management contributor to DesignWise. Her background includes overseas roles as a medical illustrator, education center resource manager and postgraduate Art and Design faculty in New Zealand. Local experience includes corporate sales education design in the healthcare insurance industry. She is currently project managing learning systems and curriculum design and development for a national corporation in the financial industry.
Patrick Gerber
Patrick Gerber is a principal software engineer at the Toro Company developing applications for product research. Pat began working for Toro’s Center for Advanced Turf Technology in 2001 developing control systems for autonomous/electric vehicles. From 1985 to 2001 he developed numerous new products for the burgeoning medical device industry. Pat has over 35 years of experience specializing in instrumentation and control systems and holds a bachelor’s degree is Physics from Winona State University.
Ann Gettys
