Changing technologies
OPPORTUNITIES WITH MEDICAL DEVICE MAKERS

Medical device makers offer interesting careers

The "do-good" feeling is a major plus. So is interaction with the wide range of technical disciplines that come together to create the product

"In medical devices every decision can be crucial" -Thambiah Vijayarangan, Roche Diagnostics

By Laura Gater
Contributing Editor

Jannette Cazares leads projects for GE Healthcare's clinical system business.

Marc Taylor is an engineering development specialist at Smith & Nephew, Inc.

The medical device manufacturing industry is on the upswing for several meaningful reasons. A major driver, of course, is the increasing need of the aging baby boomer population for such products. Another is the increasing selection by the medical profession of less invasive surgical procedures. Then there's the relatively new application of medical devices to deliver pharmaceuticals, and finally the overall increase in electronics in medicine, as in every other aspect of modern life.

Looking for diversity
Many leaders in the medical device industry are actively looking for diverse techies. At Roche Diagnostics, for example, HR VP Cris Wilbur notes that "We acknowledge differences and develop ways to leverage them. Our ability to connect with our customers is directly tied to hiring and retaining a workforce that understands their diverse needs."

At Bausch & Lomb, "Our success is entwined with our 150-year history of embracing diverse people and thinkers," says Clayton Osborne, VP of global diversity and organizational effectiveness.

Pat Pearman, global diversity leader for GE Healthcare, notes that "Diversity is a critical component of our growth strategy."

"At Varian Medical Systems, we are committed to creating an inclusive environment that draws upon the strength of the diversity of our workforce," says CEO Tim Guertin.

Gary Peck, HR director for Gen-Probe, sums up the general feeling when he declares that the company's reputation depends on its ability to transform the diverse backgrounds, experiences, perspectives and ideas of its employees into outstanding products and services.

Jannette Cazares: IT global program manager at GE Healthcare

Jannette Cazares.

As technology services global program manager at GE Healthcare (Wauwatosa, WI), Jannette Cazares is infrastructure project leader for the company's clinical system business. It's her job, she explains, to develop vision and strategy to align clinical system business needs to infrastructure IT requirements, and to drive project execution within scope, budget and timeline.

"Every year we plan for the new technology we will roll out the next year. Programs change frequently in medical technology to meet business needs. We try to be at the leading edge, so we're always evolving and bringing out new IT."

She also provides back-end support, like computer apps, software and communications, for the sales and service teams.

Cazares grew up in the Pacific Northwest with her sister and brother. Her doctor father was from Mexico and her mother from Puerto Rico, and both Spanish and English were spoken at home.

She graduated from Walla Walla College (Walla Walla, WA) in 1993 with a BS in engineering, and later completed a BSIT from the University of Phoenix.

"When I started studying engineering I had no idea what an engineer's job was all about. It took a few years to decide on a move to IT but now I love it. IT is how we drive change and help the business reach its goals," she says.

Cazares has worked at GE since 2001. Her first job there was as infrastructure acquisition and site leader in Portland, OR. In 2003 she was promoted to common application global project manager, which involved leading the software asset management team as well as teams that designed and implemented a global software policy. Last year she moved to her current job.

Before GE, Cazares was an engineering project leader at MedicaLogic/Entex (Phoenix, AZ and Portland, OR), responsible for the helpdesk and support structure. She came into GE through an acquisition.

Cazares notes that she's been involved with projects in Brazil and Mexico, and is the company's Hispanic forum leader for the Milwaukee area.

"I like working at Healthcare, where we make products that save peoples' lives," she says. "I know that my area of IT infrastructure is essential to the work we all do.

"My mentors encourage me and advise what my next step should be. GE has a lot of tools available to help interested employees grow their leadership skills."

Dr Said El-Rahaiby: principal engineer at Roche Diagnostics

Dr Said El-Rahaiby.

In 1999 Dr Said El-Rahaiby, a medical device materials expert and consultant, went to work at the North American HQ of Roche Diagnostics Corp (Indianapolis, IN) as a process engineer. He worked with the process engineering team, where he was responsible for raw material product development and problem solving.

In 2001 he moved into his present job as principal engineer for process development in diabetes care. He's a project leader for raw materials development, concentrating on thin films for the Accu-Check test strip, and also leads raw materials development and execution for the new Avia test strip.

The focus for El-Rahaiby is finding better, more cost-effective and efficient materials to do a job. He thinks ahead and plans for new products.

El-Rahaiby, whose father was a tailor, grew up in Libya with five brothers and a sister. He earned a BSChE from the University of Tripoli (Tripoli, Libya) in 1974, and came to the U.S. in 1975 to work on his 1978 MS in materials science and 1983 PhD at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA).

Medicine was El-Rahaiby's first career aim, and he was offered a scholarship at the University of Cairo (Cairo, Egypt). But he found both the city and the school crowded and intimidating and returned to Libya to start at the University of Tripoli.

U Tripoli didn't offer a medical curriculum at that time, and that led him to make the change to engineering as a career. Looking back he thinks it was probably the best choice. But his continuing interest in medicine eventually took him to Roche.

When he completed his PhD El-Rahaiby became a post-doctoral research associate at the Purdue University school of materials engineering (West Lafayette, IN). He moved up to project leader and assistant senior researcher at Purdue's high-temperature materials information analysis center. He investigated the interaction of lasers and materials, and the behavior of materials used for computer microchips.

In 1990 El-Rahaiby became manager and senior researcher at Purdue's ceramics information analysis center. He supervised staff and facilities dedicated to the Department of Defense, including studies and analyses of ceramics and composites, polymers and metal matrix composites, alloys and super alloys.

In 1996 he went out on his own as a consultant. His initial project was to assess the biocompatibility, fatigue resistance and body-temperature super-elasticity of NiTiNOL, a nickel-titanium alloy, for use in medical devices, drug delivery systems and implants.

In 1999 he moved to Roche. "Roche has a lot of diversity. It makes the company really strong," says El-Rahaiby. "I feel perfectly at home except that, since English is my second language, I have to work harder than native speakers to keep up with the complexity of it."

He would like to continue to improve the quality of his team's work, and perhaps eventually work in a disadvantaged country in Africa or Asia.

"Our work here is very important because we are dealing with people's lives. The responsibility is very great. As I would want the best for myself and my family, so I do my best for others," he explains.

Thambiah Vijayarangan: process team leader at Roche Diagnostics

Thambiah Vijayarangan.

Thambiah Vijayarangan, whose father is a doctor, grew up in India with two brothers and a sister. He completed his BSME at Anna University (Chennai, India) in 1989 and traveled to Oklahoma State University for 1994 and 1996 MS degrees in ME, one focused on manufacturing and one on solid mechanics.

After graduation he worked at Applied Extrusion Technologies (Terre Haute, IN) for six years. He was a senior process improvement engineer, developing and improving high-speed production of oriented polypropylene film used to wrap candy bars and beverage bottles. His team's work improved the speed of the process as well as the yield: both huge goals in the industry.

He also worked on shrink wraps. Thin film, he notes, was a focus of his masters research.

In 2002 he joined Tredegar Film Products (Terre Haute, IN) as project manager, working on a joint project with Procter & Gamble.

Vijayarangan moved to Roche Diagnostics (Indianapolis, IN) as a process engineer early in 2005. He oversees twelve engineers on multiple teams. The goal is to design and build a multilayer-lamination machine to make the Accu-Check Aviva diagnostic strips that diabetics use to test their blood sugar.

He also leads another team of five engineers researching new materials to be used in the strips.

"Working at a medical device company requires us to keep the end user in mind. We attend to details and cover every aspect at every stage, from development to final product out the door," Vijayarangan states. "In many industries the failure of a product does not seriously affect the person using it, but in the medical supply field every decision we make can be crucial."

Vijayarangan's career goal is to direct a process development or manufacturing division.

Karen Davies integrates engineering systems at Gen-Probe

Karen Davies.

In 2004 Karen Davies became associate director of engineering systems integration at Gen-Probe (San Diego, CA), responsible for safety risk management of instrument production. She and her team, nine engineers and one technician, do reliability testing on newly developed and manufactured instruments.

She also works to identify and solve issues in engineering development. "Once we find the root cause of a problem, we can determine the best way to resolve it," she notes.

Davies represents engineering on the company's instrument development core team, and provides input on cross-functional teams involved in product development.

She began at Gen-Probe in 2002 as safety risk management engineer for the Tigris instrument line. She brought the line's risk analysis documentation into compliance with international and national standards, and led a cross-functional team to ensure that appropriate safety controls were in place. In 2003 she became manager of systems integration.

Davies grew up in Alaska with two younger brothers, her mom, and her dad, a carpenter. From him she learned the joy of building things. She graduated from Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) in 1989 with a BSME and went on to graduate coursework in manufacturing systems engineering.

She found her first job out of college with SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA), a not-for-profit R&D firm. She helped develop many different products, including a semi-automated gas-pipeline robot.

She also worked on medical devices and found she liked doing it. Dura Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA) was a client, and "Dura hired five of us from SRI to start its own R&D group," she says.

She worked there from 1995 to 2001 as a process development engineer, tech lead and senior staff engineer associated with dry powder filling equipment for inhaleable insulin.

She went on to ME manager at Abbott Labs (San Diego, CA), leading a group developing and testing infusion pumps, and then to Gen-Probe.

"Medical device development requires a higher degree of systemic thought than many other fields," Davies says. "It requires rapid development, verification and provision to customers, but also strict adherence to regulations and standards and close regard to product safety and performance.

"As a leader in systems integration at Gen-Probe, I need to consider the interaction between the mechanical components, electronics, software and chemistry, and also the impact of those interactions on regulations, existing product releases, product use and the safety of patients, device users and the environment."

Davies is married with two children, ages five and nine. She hopes to continue in a leadership role in diagnostics development.

Marc Taylor: engineering development specialist at Smith & Nephew

Marc Taylor.

Marc Taylor, who is now an engineering development specialist at Smith & Nephew, Inc (Memphis, TN), began there twenty years ago as an Inroads intern.

In 2005 Taylor became a technical specialist, a new job at the company. Right now he's involved in developing a process that uses technology new to the medical device industry. Most of the time he works in the lab with a small team, and he expects to continue that work for another year before the project is complete. It's not his only project, but it does take the bulk of his time.

He thinks that the great interest of working in medical device manufacturing, apart from the good feeling of helping people, is the wide variety of technical disciplines that come together to create medical devices. "These interactions make the industry exciting," he says.

Taylor grew up in Memphis, TN, with two brothers and a sister. His mother was a teacher and his stepfather was a pastor. As a kid he loved to take things apart to see how they worked, and his grandfather encouraged his enthusiasm.

In high school he took an engineering track, and began a full-time summer internship with Smith & Nephew when he graduated in 1987. He started at Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA), but transferred to Christian Brothers College (Memphis, TN), then dropped out to work as a research technician at Smith & Nephew.

He became the company's first research lab coordinator, responsible for equipment maintenance, compliance, and assistance with new equipment acquisition. After hours he returned to U Memphis and completed a BS in engineering technology in 2001.

Taylor enjoys his career at Smith & Nephew, but eventually hopes to become a full-time Baptist minister. He plans to start at a Memphis seminary in a year or two, and will continue at Smith & Nephew while he earns his masters in divinity. He is married and has six children; his wife is a bank supervisor.

Sujit Shetty: engineering manager for software at Varian

Sujit Shetty.

Sujit Shetty was born and raised in Bombay, India. He graduated from K. J. Somaiya College (Bombay, India) in 1990 with a BS in physics.

His first jobs were in India and Hong Kong, in software for financial and telecom companies. In 1998 he came to the U.S. and took a job at medical equipment maker Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA) as a software engineer on medical device apps.

Work on radiation oncology apps took him into many areas of software development. Today he's a software engineering manager, responsible for Varian's practice management apps. He works with a highly diverse engineering team that mirrors the diversity of the Bay Area.

"Telecom software is pretty flexible and all I had to do was coding when I worked in telecom. The medical device sector is quite a change," he says with a smile. "I have invested much of my time understanding radiation oncology."

The software he helped develop is used to deliver intricate chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It makes sure the patient is getting the correct drugs and radiation doses in particular sequence, targeting cancerous tissues but sparing surrounding structures and organs.

"We are on the leading edge of radiation therapy. Our machines and imaging technologies are extremely sophisticated.

"Working in the medical device field has given me a great sense of responsibility and pride for creating dependable and robust applications," he says.

Maria Vanni is a senior process engineer for Bausch & Lomb

Maria Vanni.

In 2003 Maria Vanni joined Bausch & Lomb (Rochester, NY) as a senior process engineer, responsible for process development for medical devices, over-the-counter (OTC) and pharmaceutical vision-care products.

OTC products are sold directly to the general public, but they are federally regulated, she notes, just as prescription products are.

Before she got into the pharmaceutical industry Vanni spent four years with Corning, Inc (Corning, NY). She started as a measurements engineer and moved on to work in optical amplifier product and process development.

Vanni's father brought his family to the U.S. from Ecuador in 1972 so he could complete his MS and PhD in ChE. He became a product and process engineer and is now QA and control manager for U.S. Sugar Corp. Vanni's mother began as an elementary school teacher and is now a guidance counselor.

Vanni grew up in the Southeastern U.S. and moved to Rochester, NY to attend the University of Rochester. She graduated in 1990 with a BSChE and went on to a 1992 MS in biomedical engineering from the Hartford Graduate Center and the Rochester Polytechnic Institute, and a 1997 MSChE from the University of Rochester. While working on the MSChE she was a research assistant in pediatric cardiology.

She's had a number of mentors throughout her career, from professors to managers and colleagues. Vanni is married and has three sons. She likes to talk to young women about careers in engineering, emphasizing the opportunities an education in engineering can offer and encouraging students to shadow her on the job. She enjoys working in pharmaceuticals, and would ultimately like to go into technical management.

Angela Gomez-Hodgson: IE at PerkinElmer

Angela Gomez-Hodgson.

IE Angela Gomez-Hodgson worked as a sound recording engineer before moving into industrial design in the ME department of PerkinElmer (Waltham, MA).

PerkinElmer describes its business as "driving growth and innovation in health sciences and photonics to improve the quality of life." The company's wide-ranging interests include cellular research, clinical genetics and diagnostics, pharmaceutical development and manufacturing and digital imaging.

When Gomez-Hodgson began there in 1999 her main responsibilities were maintaining the library of electronic CAD drawings and helping the company's in-house designers with modeling and design. She's still doing that and also, because of her background in industrial design, works with teams to design 3-D models and does some projects on her own.

Gomez-Hodgson grew up in a large city in Colombia, speaking Spanish with her five brothers and three sisters. Her father owned a coffee plantation. She got her BS in industrial design from Javeriana University (Bogotá, Colombia) in 1982, then came to New York City, where she studied audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research.

She worked in audio from 1985 to 1997, as an assistant engineer, recording engineer and U.S. agent for recording studios and music companies. But as the industry moved to digital she decided to rethink her career track. She began taking classes in ProEngineer, a CAD software program that she still uses in her work.

She met several engineers from PerkinElmer at her classes. They helped her get a job at their company, and have mentored her ever since.

Gomez-Hodgson is married with a fourteen-year-old daughter.

D/C

Laura Gater is a freelance business and medical/healthcare writer based in northeast Indiana.

Back to Top