Most of the medical devices that Guidant Corp makes are minimally invasive. In the U.S., the vascular intervention business - catheters, stents and devices for angioplasty - is located in Temecula and Santa Clara, CA and Houston, TX. The cardiac rhythm management business, dealing with implantable pacemakers, defibrillators and heart failure devices, is in St. Paul, MN and Redmond, WA.
Other groups in Santa Clara produce endovascular solutions for stroke prevention and renal disease, and products for "beating heart" bypass surgery. Manufacturing operations are in the U.S. and abroad; sales are global.
Guidant R&D amounts to 15 percent of its sales, and the company also grows by acquisition. It does almost all its own product design, development and manufacturing, and builds much of its own sophisticated manufacturing equipment, says Susan Norton, VP of employee development. Norton is responsible for employee development corporation-wide.
To staff its operations, the company hires biomedical engineers, manufacturing engineers, software engineers, MEs, EEs, ChEs and many more. "We hire a lot of engineers into our research and manufacturing organizations," Norton states. "Quality engineers are also big in the compliance and quality areas, since we work in a very strict FDA regulatory environment."
She's always happy to bring in engineers with experience in a regulated environment, but "We also hire a lot of people from outside the industry and train them in how to work with the FDA regulations and guidelines.
"As we look at new opportunities for growth, we need to build new capabilities, so our hiring increases from year to year. Our goal is to attract the best, most diverse talent we possibly can."
"Because we are a Fortune 100 company a lot of people gravitate to us. We go to career fairs around the world and recruit talent at the top schools across the country."
Engineers at Guidant grow by broadening their portfolios of experiences. "It brings a fresh perspective and builds employees with depth and breadth," Norton says.
For example, "R&D engineers may do a stint in manufacturing to follow their designs to the production floor. A product development team includes manufacturing, quality and R&D engineers sitting with marketing and sales, regulatory and clinical specialists, so they all get input on how the product will be designed and built."
Norton notes that Guidant has "made great strides in bringing in women and minority talent. We believe diversity keeps us innovating, creating and getting the best new ideas."
In 2004, she confides, a chief diversity officer will be on board, as will managers to drive diversity initiatives across Guidant.
"Diversity is integral to Guidant's success today and in the future," says Bob Dowden, the company's director of human resources. "To continue as a leader in our industry, we absolutely must attract and engage the most capable people at every level of our organization."
Another development is Guidant's new African American affinity group. "They're getting together across the company and doing some interesting things," says Norton. "They're working with our senior management team in one-on-one 'buddy' sessions."
Women make up some 20 percent of Guidant's top management. In fact, two women are actually heading up divisions, and one of the two is an engineer.
"When I make presentations," says Norton, "people come up to me afterwards to say it makes them feel good to see women and minorities in high positions in our company."
Among those applauding is the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association, which recently gave Guidant president and CEO Ron Dollens its mentor of the year award for promoting professional careers for women.
On the community front, the company sponsors girls and minority students to go to summer science camps. Some locations offer career days for middle-school kids, some have student tours, some bring in students to shadow engineers. And on the college level, the company funds science programs, fellowships and scholarships at universities across the country, and offers engineering internships.
"We consider all these things good stewardship and a way of building for the future," says Norton. "At the end of the day, that's our future talent pool. We want to get young people excited about technical careers."
A close relationship with FAMU
In the last few years, Guidant has been recruiting intensively at the engineering school of Florida A&M University (FAMU, Tallahassee, FL). Ken Carlisle is VP of customer and site services for Guidant on the West Coast. It was Carlisle's idea to begin the close relationship.
"Back in 2000, I suggested to management that we pick an historically black university for intense engineering recruiting," he says. "Ever since, we've been on a journey with FAMU to grow our relationship in a number of ways."
Guidant participates in FAMU's Life Gets Better Fellowship program, which includes a full scholarship and internships at Guidant in the summer. The company sponsors a Fellow from freshman to senior year. Guidant's first Life Gets Better student started as a freshman in 2003.
Guidant has also been involved with the FAMU curriculum. "We're working with a professor in their engineering department who is redefining the biomedical engineering discipline. People believe that in the medical devices business we use a lot of biomedical engineers, but what we really do is take students from other engineering disciplines and teach them anatomy and physiology. If we could teach engineers anatomy and physiology in school, they would have an advantage in the medical devices field."
In 2003, Guidant had five FAMU interns and made offers to four of them. "We're starting to send the message internally to our organization that there's some terrific talent available at FAMU," says Carlisle.
"We find that engineering students don't really know much about careers in the medical devices industry," Carlisle observes. "Applying technology to human ailments is creating a huge market and an opportunity for great careers for engineers."
D/C
Guidant Corp
www.guidant.com
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Headquarters: |
Indianapolis, IN |
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Employees: |
11,000 worldwide, 9,000 U.S. |
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Revenues: |
$3.7 billion |
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Business: |
Minimally invasive medical devices |
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