November 7, 2023 • 56 mins
Rich Walsh is CEO of Corvent, a company that is focused on providing solutions in the ventilator market. Rich has a long history in sales and sales management, and has transitioned from sales to become a first-time CEO. At the same time, Rich and the team are transitioning from providing a ventilator for COVID, to a full-featured product. In this episode Rich shares about the foundation of his career and the importance of discipline, openness and leader engagement, how direct feedback can make or break a career, locating a company in a non-traditional city and state, building an internship program that benefits the company and interns, and leadership lessons learned from legends in our industry.
Links from this episode:
- Rich Walsh LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardswalsh/
- Corvent Medical https://www.corventmedical.com
Connect with Mastering Medical Device:
- Website: https://www.masteringmedicaldevice.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mastering-medical-device
- Patrick Kothe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-kothe
- Patrick Kothe Twitter: https://twitter.com/patrickkothe
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:08):
Wish you knew more about the medical device
industry and how you can do yourjob more effectively and put
your career on the fast track?
Then stay tuned while industryveteran Pat Kothe shares
strategies and tips fromcustomers and company insiders
who help drive the industry.
Now let's join Pat as heexplores how you can master
(00:28):
medical device.
Pat Kothe (00:31):
Welcome.
Transitions have alwaysfascinated me whether it's
personal or product or companyrelated.
What the past state was thetension that led to change, how
you prepare for change, takingthe leap, and then executing on
the new reality.
(00:52):
Our guest today is Rich Walsh,CEO of Corvent, a company that's
focused on providing solutionsin a ventilator market.
Rich has a long history in salesand sales management.
We'll get into that in thisconversation.
And he's now transitioned fromsales to become a first-time
CEO.
At the same time, Rich and theteam are transitioning from
(01:15):
providing a ventilator forCOVID, to a full feature
product.
In our conversation, we discussthe foundation of his career and
the importance of discipline,openness and leader engagement,
how direct feedback can make orbreak a career, locating a
(01:36):
company in a nontraditional cityand state, building an
internship program that benefitsthe company as well as the
interns, and leadership lessonslearned from legends in our
industry.
Here's our conversation.
Rich, welcome to the podcast.
Rich Walsh (01:57):
Thanks, Pat.
It's great to be here with you.
Pat Kothe (01:58):
So Rich, you began your career in two very
demanding organizations, the U.
S.
Army and another U.
S.
U.
S.
Surgical.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhat it was like to be in, in
the army and kind of what youdid in the army and then how it
prepared you for the demands ofU.
S.
Surgical.
Rich Walsh (02:20):
It's crazy.
I never thought of it that way,but you totally nailed it.
I was young when I was in thearmy I was a pilot and an
officer and, the really had theopportunity to explore and do
some really cool things aroundthe world, but you always had
that military pressure.
You always had the rules, theregulations, the chain of
(02:42):
command, and, I was a warrantofficer, which is a little bit
different than a commissionedofficer.
Warrant officers are highlyspecialized individuals who do
things like they fly or they,they run boat operations and
they have a very specific, job.
I really think that the armyreally prepared me well for U.
S.
Surgical now that I think of it,because when I got to U.
(03:04):
S.
Surgical, it was very, we werevery buttoned up.
it was a suit every day.
it was, you were never late.
we had six weeks of training andit was it was bootcamp.
We called it U.
S.
Surgical Bootcamp.
We went away, we were lockeddown.
We didn't see our families forsix weeks.
(03:25):
We learned everything from AORNstandards to scrubbing in.
We used to scrub in onprocedures.
I scrubbed in on surgicalprocedures with the doctors and
the nurses.
and there was just a really highlevel of regimentation as well
as, policies, procedures, justlike the army.
Pat Kothe (03:46):
And the, expectations in that training course were
extremely high.
So tell a little bit about theexpectations and if you did not
meet expectations, whathappened?
Rich Walsh (03:58):
yeah, So the joke was, who's not going to be here
tomorrow.
And we would, typically if youdidn't get a 90.
or above on every test on everyFriday, you would have to retake
the test, usually within a dayor two.
If you didn't get a 90, you weregone.
And now, so it was kind of likethe army, you know, it was like
(04:20):
you, you left your prior, job,you signed up for this deal.
If you didn't pass, you were outand now you're out looking for
another job.
And U.
S.
Surgical is just like that.
In fact, the final exam was a95.
If you didn't get a 95 on thefinal exam, which was hours
long, encompassing six weeksworth of hands on plus written
(04:42):
work, you were gone.
And we used to have like on aFriday, people would, there was
so much pressure, just like themilitary.
We would take the test firstthing Friday morning, and
literally we'd come back fromlunch and people would be
missing from the class and it'sbecause they were asked to leave
because they cracked under thepressure or they couldn't grasp
(05:03):
everything.
The military is like that,you're in a very high pressure
situation.
So, the military very much soprepared me, for, a very
successful run at U.
S.
Surgical.
When I went through, Mr.
Hirsch was running the companystill, and it was tight, and if
you weren't tight, you weregone.
And, I will say, Hirsch was thebest CEO I ever worked for.
(05:28):
you know, He was the consummatesales guy.
He was in there with you.
he taught me, really.
He taught me a lot, but, and Iwas just a junior sales guy.
I was watching from afar.
but, he was all, he had apresence.
For a short guy, he had apresence.
And, it's the way I run mycompany here today.
(05:49):
Very tight.
Pat Kothe (05:49):
What's really interesting is the first company
that you worked for, has so muchimpact on you.
And the first company for me inmedical device was American
Hospital Supply.
And I felt the same way asyou're describing things, I felt
the same way about AmericanHospital Supply.
It was to me, the best companythat I've ever worked for.
Now, that's from the standpointof I'm a newbie coming in, but,
(06:13):
but, but the, the number ofpeople that have gone on to have
phenomenal careers that spenttime and were trained at
American Hospital Supply aregreat.
Same as U.
S.
Surgical and so many of thelessons that you learn early on
about expectations andcamaraderie and culture, all of
these things that are soimportant and training and
(06:35):
Customer relationships.
We're so lucky that they werebuilt into us at such an early
age.
Rich Walsh (06:43):
Absolutely.
And you know, it really became afamily, and it still is, I have
people here at Corvent Medical,that I worked with 30 years ago.
They're part of my team atCorvent, people that my chief
marketing officer She was ajunior marketing person at U.
S.
Surgical 30 years ago, and I mether in Norwalk, Connecticut And
(07:04):
we stayed in touch, and you knowshe's phenomenal.
One of my last CEOs was one ofmy peers Bill Facto who ran
Aclarrent and now Ear Lens just,impeccable, presence, impeccable
presentation, very detailoriented and a passion for
medical device.
(07:24):
If you don't have a passion formedical device and you're at the
top, you're not going tosucceed.
And I've always had a passion, adeep passion for medical device
and, being able to help peopleand make a difference.
Pat Kothe (07:37):
I want to talk about your career because it is a
really interesting career andtalk about passion for medical
device.
Perclose, Intuitive,Stereotaxis, Atricure,
Acclarent, Neotrack,MedRobotics, and now Corvent.
So some extremely recognizable,successful companies, We all
(07:57):
move, we don't stay with onecompany.
Most of us don't stay with onecompany.
But when you look at yourcareer, is there a common thread
of why you move to differentthings?
is.
there something that's commonamongst those things?
Rich Walsh (08:11):
There is.
And most of my moves, the vastmajority of my moves were,
because there was a transactionthat had taken place.
So Abbott bought Perclose.
So Perclose was my firststartup.
Coming out of U.
S.
Surgical.
And I really look at U.
S.
Surgical as a startup, eventhough it had been going for
years.
There was a strongentrepreneurial spirit.
(08:31):
There was a...
It was, even though it wasn't aflat organization, and it was a
lot of structure, you hadaccess.
I could pick up the phone andcall Mr.
Hirsch as a junior sales guy.
I could call him and ask him forhelp, ask him his opinion, ask
him, how would you approachthis?
Cause Hirsch loved to teach, andthat has always been a
(08:52):
cornerstone of every companythat I've been involved in.
But I've left companiestypically when they were
transitioning from a startup toa much bigger organization and
Aclarrent, a great example.
Aclarrent was purchased byJohnson and Johnson.
Pretty early on, I, I made thedecision.
I didn't want to work for acompany where, I was a number, I
(09:14):
wanted to work for a companythat, that I knew who the CEO
was.
And I reported to the CEO.
Same thing with, uh.
You know, um, all the way backto Perclose when Abbott bought
Perclose, and that was my firsttransaction, made some money on
the stock.
From there, it was kind of offto the races on, I knew that I
(09:34):
wasn't going to be able to makeit to the next level, at a
company like J& J or it just,the probabilities were low,
whereas in a small organization,I could make a high impact and
be recognized and move up theladder quickly.
Novel technologies is what Ilove.
I love, like today we just had ameeting with our IP attorneys
(09:58):
here at Corvent.
We write IP every day.
We're building a picket fencearound our business, around our
products, making sure that weinvent.
I love when my engineers gettogether with my IP guys and
gals, and they just starttalking about, we did this, we
did that.
And they're like, wow, that'snovel.
Let's write some IP around that.
(10:19):
And that's the really cool thingabout it because you can make a
difference.
You can, help people.
You can make a difference withthese new technologies.
I've learned that over theyears, at Acclarent, when we
first got Acclarent up andrunning, we were putting out a
minimum of one new product everyquarter.
One new product every quarter.
We went new balloons.
(10:40):
We went new introducers, we wentnew guide wires.
We, then we started doing allsorts of other tech lighted
guide wires.
so we always had something newand that's what a sales guy or
gal wants, right?
They want to something new intheir hand to go show their
customer, their best customer,go right to the best customer
and start pitching it anddetailing it.
And then, selling it up theladder and then going out and,
(11:02):
having something that theircompetition doesn't have.
To work their way into thatecosystem that they could never
get into.
And having something that isdifferentiated is a beautiful
thing because, it allows greatopportunities to make new
friends, new customers and, andgrow your business.
Pat Kothe (11:19):
So you came up the sales side.
You spent most of your career inthe sales side before you got
PK - Rich Walsh (11:24):
into
Pat Kothe (11:25):
management and senior sales positions.
So it sounds like you, you knewwhat you wanted early on.
you're more of a startup personthan you're more of a, a hunter
than a gatherer.
You like the, the excitement atthe front end.
What was it about the startup?
Is it the risk?
(11:46):
Is it the newness?
What is it about startups that,that has, has you so, um,
enthralled with that part of thebusiness?
Rich Walsh (11:54):
It's interesting because I never really thought
it was a lot of risk.
I never saw it as risk.
I always knew I had enoughconfidence that, okay, if this
doesn't work out, I'll go findanother job really fast.
And I've never had a problemfinding another job.
And I'm blessed from thatstandpoint.
I've never really been out ofwork.
(12:15):
It's just the excitement ofthese new technologies and the
excitement of learning more andthe excitement of, taking a new
technology to a clinician and,getting them to buy in on the
concept.
it's not like you change theparadigm.
If you have a truly noveltechnology, you can change the
paradigm of how they go abouttreating a patient, doing
(12:38):
surgery or, therapeutic side ofthings.
And a great example is ourventilators.
We started this company at thebeginning of the pandemic, and,
we knew that we needed to haveventilators that could help,
patients that had COVID and thatwere easy to use and rapidly
deployable.
Me and my team got vaccinatedright out of the gates because
(13:00):
we wanted to get back into theICU.
We wanted to get back in thehospital.
As soon as we could find outwhere we could get vaccinated.
We went, we got vaccinated, andwe were one of the few medical
companies that were allowed backinto a hospital.
Nobody else could getvaccinated, but we were in there
with our ventilators.
We were in the long term acutecare facilities and the nursing
(13:22):
facilities and the hospitals.
Selling ventilators and showingthese people how they can save
lives with our technology.
And that's very rewarding.
Again, a great CEO.
I worked for Lonnie Smith atintuitive, Lonnie, came out of
Boston Consulting and when hewas leaving Boston Consulting,
he had two or three differentopportunities and, he asked his
(13:43):
daughter, and this is the storyhe told me, he said, where
should I go?
And he laid it all out.
And she said, dad, where can youmake the biggest impact?
And he said, I think with thisrobotics company and now here we
are.
That was 90, 1997.
I joined in 1999, before we had510K.
I was out talking to doctors in1999, in theory about a robot.
(14:10):
We didn't have 510K, and I'mknocking on doors with all the
laparoscopic surgeons I knew, upand down the East Coast.
Actually, the whole, I had thewhole U.
S.
at the time.
I was the only sales guy atIntuitive.
I was the first sales guy atIntuitive, knocking on doors,
talking to doctors about aproduct that didn't even exist,
only in theory and on a patent,and, started getting traction,
(14:32):
which is amazing.
It's such a cool story.
Pat Kothe (14:35):
I can remember, meeting Joe DeVivo at the U.
S.
Surgical, offices before, beforethe robots were really going.
And he, and then he made themove into robotics at that
point.
So Yeah.
it is, having that, ability tolook back, and see how far we've
come is really, reallyinteresting.
So I want to go, I want to goback a little bit in your career
(14:56):
as well.
So you started off as a salesrep, started off as an
individual contributor, and manytimes in our career, we don't
know what we want to be when wefirst get there.
We're just happy to have the joband learning along.
But at some point in time, asyou're selling, you thought,
geez, I see myself doingsomething greater.
What was that, and was that...
(15:18):
People management.
how did you say, I want to dosomething greater.
I want to help, help myself inmy career.
Rich Walsh (15:24):
Yeah.
I think, and I've never reallythought about it, but now that
I'm thinking about it, I thinkit goes back to, again, US
Surgical was huge on education.
And teaching and learning.
I took to the med device world,like a duck to water and love
just the whole technical aspectsof it and the physiological
aspects and the bioscience sideof it.
(15:47):
And then, I really enjoyedteaching new salespeople that
would come out and work with mein the field.
And I think I looked at myselfmore as an educator at first.
and a good team member, thenbeing a leader, but then
eventually, other people saw theleadership qualities in me and
(16:09):
said, Rich, we'd like you totake over the Mid Atlantic
region.
Then we'd like you to take overthe East Coast and then, you get
into positions where you'rerunning a big team, a hundred
salespeople and training peopleand education people.
And you start learning all thenuances of a startup, everything
from, how do you build a qualitymanagement systems and how do
you, and that really intriguedme learning all these new
(16:31):
aspects of how quality foldsinto development of the
technology and how the marketingside plays into it.
And, most CEOs that, that I'veworked for either had finance
backgrounds or marketingbackgrounds, very few had sales
backgrounds.
And I was one of the few guyswho worked my way into a CEO
role from a sales position, andI think it's just because I had,
(16:57):
I had spent a lot of time withthe marketing people.
I had spent a lot of time crossfunctionally.
I love hanging out with theengineers.
I've got a dozen engineers hereat Corvent, and I love spending
a lot of time with them.
Everything from the softwareengineers to the mechanical
engineers to the electricalengineers.
I learned something new everyday and I just love that the
tech side of it.
Pat Kothe (17:18):
Was that something that, that you recognized that
you wanted to do?
So you had, you had, you had anobjective.
I want to be a CEO and I, and Ineed to build these skills up.
Rich Walsh (17:29):
At a certain point, I think I was probably in my mid
40s.
I was thinking to myself, I'mstill carrying this bag around.
Yeah, I'm a, vice president ofsales, but I'm still banging on
doors.
Wouldn't it be cool?
The work your way into, to Csuite and either a COO or CEO
position.
My last company, didn't farewell because of the pandemic.
(17:52):
We ran out of money.
when I started redoing my resumeright as the pandemic hit in
January, February of 2020, Isaid to myself, you know what,
I'm not going to go for anothervice president role.
I want to just shoot for themoon and go for a CEO role.
I know I can do it.
I've hung around enough greatCEOs, to, you know, what made
(18:13):
them successful.
And I've been around enoughmarketing people now to, know
the nuances of that andeverything.
And I'm a, by nature, I'm agearhead.
I was a mechanic.
I was an airplane mechanicbefore I went into the, the
army.
So I love the technical side ofit.
And so I was like, you knowwhat, I got this.
And so I put on my resume, I'm,I'm looking for a CEO position.
(18:37):
And a recruiter called me andsaid, Hey, I have a chief, sales
officer position for a companyCorvent Medical.
And I said, who did they reportto?
And they said, we don't have aCEO yet.
Pat Kothe (18:49):
Bingo.
Rich Walsh (18:50):
I'll interview for the CEO role.
And the rest is kind of history.
I ran him over, went to thefounders, met with the founders
and pitched myself as a CEO.
And, the rest is history andnever looked back.
It, I should have done it when Iwas 40 something, but I love
doing it.
And, uh, you know, it's just,it's been a great ride.
Pat Kothe (19:12):
So it sounds like, many of the CEOs that you've
been in their organizations,you've learned a lot from.
Were they mentors?
Did you have other mentorsoutside the organization?
What's your view on mentorship?
Rich Walsh (19:26):
Bill Facto probably had the biggest impact on me
because there was a lot of timeshe'd sit me down and say, okay,
let me help you with this.
This isn't, this is not the wayyou should be doing this.
And he took the time to educateme on how I should be, managing
and leading and how to maneuverwithin an organization more
(19:48):
effectively, if you will, andclimb the ladder.
I think that I learned fromwatching.
I don't learn from reading abook.
I usually learn from making thesame mistake twice and then
committing defective, I'm notgoing to make it a third time,
you know, and yeah, I, I make itonce and I say, Oh, that was an
accident.
I make it a second time, said,Oh, that's a trend.
(20:09):
And I shouldn't do that again.
And so I learned from observing,and.
I take away a lot of, I'velearned a lot of the great
things that CEOs can do, andI've learned a lot of the not so
great things that CEOs can do.
And, it's the third rail.
I've watched some CEOs make somemassive mistakes, and that's
(20:29):
stored in the back of my mind,and I just, move away from that
and move towards the light,right?
Move towards the things thatI've seen the really good CEOs
do and, follow their lead, ifyou will.
Pat Kothe (20:40):
So you mentioned something that's, uh, that's
really important.
And that is direct feedback.
because as managers, or aspeople, you like to deliver good
news, but the more valuable isthe bad news, or the
developmental errors.
It can be couched differently,but direct feedback is so
(21:03):
important to our growth.
So, you mentioned, You know, onething.
What's the most, um, Directfeedback that you got that you
didn't understand about yourselfor the situation that made you
grow the most.
Rich Walsh (21:21):
I have a really dry sense of humor and when you have
a really dry sense of humor,sometimes people get it and
other people don't get it.
And they, they see a cynical.
So I would be in meetings and Iwould, unleash some dry humor
sometimes.
And, half the group would get itand the other half would think
you're negative or cynical.
And so I learned to just,suppress that.
(21:42):
And that was, that's probablythe biggest thing that, there's
a time and a place for the humorand just button it up and just
keep your mouth shut and, havepositive input.
when appropriate.
I think that's probably thebiggest lesson that I've
learned.
Pat Kothe (21:57):
Do you remember who gave that, who gave that
feedback to you?
Rich Walsh (22:00):
oh yeah,
Pat Kothe (22:00):
How'd you feel when you were getting that feedback?
Rich Walsh (22:03):
it was.
It was like I got hit over thehead with a hammer, but then, I
sat back and I said, okay, I getit.
And he had to give it to me likethree times, you know, it was
the first time I go in hisoffice and I was never afraid
again, I love sitting down andtalking to a CEO and picking
their brain and just getting toknow him.
(22:25):
And, the first time he, hementions it in passing the
second time, he's like, Hey, Imentioned to you once before.
And at the third time, it'slike, things aren't working out
here.
And here's the reason why.
And then I convinced him not tofire me and keep me on.
And I, I was the top producingsalesperson for the company, but
I had this super dry sense ofhumor and it could be considered
(22:47):
cynical and I changed it.
I said, you know what?
Like I said, sometimes it takesme three times.
Pat Kothe (22:52):
if he wouldn't, if he wouldn't have given you that,
that's probably the biggest gifthe could have given you for your
career.
If he wouldn't have given it toyou, where would you be today?
Rich Walsh (23:00):
Yeah, probably wouldn't be here.
Who knows?
I still carry a bag, so I don'tmind carrying a bag.
It's just that I'm having somuch fun now being the CEO and
growing a company from theground up.
I've always looked at myterritory as I'm the CEO of my
territory, buildingrelationships, hitting plan,
(23:21):
converting your competition.
I've always looked at, this ismy little fiefdom and I'm going
to run it.
And I'm going to use all theresources of the company.
And that's the big part also, ifyou don't know how to use the
resources of the company.
And you don't tap into that andstretch everybody.
The R& D, I, I'd bring engineersout in the field all the time.
(23:42):
I'd call them and
Pat Kothe (23:43):
they're the best salespeople,
Rich Walsh (23:45):
Oh, they're fantastic because everybody
takes them seriously.
They know they totally disarm acustomer who, doesn't want to be
sold.
You got the customers that yousay blue, they say red.
they move away from salespeople.
So you can bring the engineersin or the marketing people,
(24:06):
mostly the engineers, especiallyif you got a, a clinician or a
customer who's technicallyoriented and you drop an
engineer in their lap and youhit a home run.
One of my biggest investors atCoreVent is a scientist.
And, he came to visit before heinvested in Corvent I gave the
first 45 minute presentation andthen I let him wander off with
(24:31):
my chief technology officer.
they spent another hour and ahalf together and he closed the
deal.
I didn't close the deal.
My chief technology officer,who's brilliant.
He closed the deal for us to getthe financing that, that helped
really help Corvent pivot herein North Dakota.
Pat Kothe (24:51):
When you look at the best salespeople, they're the
conductor of the orchestra.
that's how you have to look
PK - Rich Walsh (24:56):
at
Pat Kothe (24:57):
it, is you've got the baton and you're bringing in the
strings when you need to bringin the strings and the brass
when you need.
So you're conducting all of thisto make, the beautiful music or
the sales coming in.
Rich Walsh (25:08):
Absolutely.
I've sold robots, I've soldvascular equipment.
I've sold staplers, laparoscopicequipment, ENT equipment.
and I've always saw theorthopedic guys.
They bring the tray in, theysaid, and nothing against the
orthopedics or anything, but Ijust never really saw the
innovation and, although theyplay a huge role in putting in
(25:30):
screws and putting in hips andputting in knees and shoulders
and everything.
I always wanted to be just alittle bit more, and I wanted to
make sure it worked for acompany where you have a
constant stream of new productsand you have a constant stream
of training and education.
What's the fastest way to asurgeon, converting them?
You educate them.
When I first became a manager USSurgical moved me down to the
(25:52):
Maryland area and I had JohnsHopkins as one of my accounts.
And, uh, Johns Hopkins was in acompetitive account at the time.
And I went, I met with the, Idon't know how I got in there,
but I got in to meet with thesurgeon in chief.
His name was Dr.
John Cameron at the time.
And this is again, back in like1996, 90, 94, 95, something like
(26:19):
that.
And, I got to Cameron by saying,look, I want to do.
suturing labs with yourresidents.
So I'd go out Saturday morning,5 AM, go to the store, buy pig's
feet, drag them up to the lab inHopkins and spend half a day on
a Saturday or a Sunday in asweaty lab, sweaty old smelly
(26:40):
lab with pig's feet, with theresidents showing them how to
suture.
And so showing them how tostaple.
And I converted Hopkins and thatmade me a lot of money, but that
also helped me to the next levelat U.
S.
Surgical.
Mr.
Hirsch came down, visited, hedonated money, we rebuilt the
(27:00):
Dr.
Blalock lab, and we did a lot ofcool things at Hopkins, and it
was all because I took the timeand just educated.
And I told Dr.
Cameron, I said, you know what,I just want to work with your
residents.
And if you don't buy anythingfrom me, that's fine.
because I know these residentsare going to go other places
and, they'll think about us whenthey make a decision on what
technologies they use.
(27:22):
And, you know, Cameron was toughand, he held us, at Bay for a
long time, but eventually we gotthe business and, uh, did it the
old fashioned way.
Pat Kothe (27:32):
Delivering value.
Sometimes that value is ourproduct.
Sometimes our value is ourservice, and sometimes our value
is our education.
If you have finding what thevalue is to them and delivering
that's how you build arelationship.
Rich Walsh (27:45):
Absolutely.
Pat Kothe (27:46):
So let's talk about Corvent.
We've talked a little bit aboutit, but, tell me about, what
problem you're solving, who thecustomers are, and you've got a
really interesting story on howthe company got started.
So let's spend some time talkingabout Corvent.
Rich Walsh (28:00):
So the company was started in March of 2020.
Pat Kothe (28:03):
What was going on then?
Rich Walsh (28:05):
a little thing called the global pandemic.
The U.
S.
government came to our founders,and we've got some really smart
guys.
One's a Hopkins trainedphysicist.
The other guy is a transplantcardiologist out of New York.
And the U.
S.
government went to them at anincubator called Caridia.
(28:30):
And Caridia's background is theydid a lot of startups that
involved vascular.
So it was a great company orstart up to go to.
And, they asked, they told them,Look, we need a real cost
effective ventilator.
We need it to be easy to use.
We need it to be rapidlydeployable.
And we need a lot of them reallyfast.
(28:51):
So the founders, Mark Gelfandand Howard Levin, Dr.
Levin got together and he foundsome high net worth individuals,
and they did the right thing.
They all put money into acompany called Corvent, and not
to make money, not to everexpect to make any money out of
it, but to build ventilators tosave lives worldwide.
(29:13):
And we did that.
I started with the company about90 days after it was founded.
I came on board and, Iunderstood when I came on board,
I said, you know, Hey, we've gotenough money to make this one
ventilator.
And then we got to start sellingthem.
And nobody ever said that theywere going to invest any more
money in us.
Nobody ever said there was nocommitments.
(29:33):
I was out of work, but yeah, Iknew this was my first shot at
being a CEO and I was ready.
I was fired up.
I wanted to help.
And this, this is a great story,right?
People were dying by thousandsand millions.
They needed ventilatorsworldwide.
So my engineering team, my CTO,John Mahoney, And his, small
(29:55):
group of engineers created aventilator that was super cost
effective, was super safe,required little to no,
experience on how to useventilators.
And that was the key.
Because during the pandemic, thecaregivers were becoming in the
patients, right?
The pulmonologists were gettingsick, the respiratory therapists
(30:17):
were getting sick.
The nurses, the doctors,everybody was getting sick, so
you needed a ventilator that wassuper easy to use, but
sophisticated enough to save alife.
So that was our mantra, simpleyet sophisticated.
And they designed a ventilatorin 90 days that made it through
(30:37):
the FDA EUA process in another90 days.
Pat Kothe (30:41):
EUA meaning.
Rich Walsh (30:43):
Emergency Use Authorization.
Yeah, and so they gotauthorization, we got it, and we
started building, ventilatorswith our partner Design Catapult
Manufacturing out in California.
And, we shipped hundreds ofthese around the world.
In fact, most recently we justshipped ventilators to the
Ukraine to help with theUkrainian people because they've
(31:05):
got a thousand hospitals thatare destroyed or heavily damaged
now.
So these ventilators, we builtthem very cost effectively.
We shipped them.
We have an unbelievablereliability.
One of the things that we wantedwith this vent was simple to use
so we could train anybody to useit in an hour or less.
Super reliable.
(31:25):
Requires no service ormaintenance ever.
So the entire lifespan of thisvent, which is five years, you
don't have to put another pennyinto it, ever.
And then, it was supersophisticated, so you could, you
could save a life with thisventilator.
In five minutes, you take it outof the box, set it up, and in
five minutes, you can have apatient on a ventilator.
(31:46):
And, so that was the goal, wehit it, we shipped the vents,
and, uh, you know, at thatpoint, one of my board members
said, Rich, I'm just notconvinced yet if it's going to
be a product or a company.
You accomplish what the goal wasand you saving lives, but what's
the next step for Corvent?
And, that really motivated meto, think about what, the
(32:08):
product portfolio can look like.
The pandemic uncovered massiveum, deficits in the ventilator,
business.
It was really four or five bigcompanies that were, in
ventilators, but there was verylittle innovation, very little
innovate.
It was a sleepy kind of world.
And, we are changing that, thevast majority of ventilators in
(32:32):
the world are not made byAmerican companies.
We're changing that.
We're bringing that back to theUnited States.
We're bringing it to Fargo,North Dakota.
We're designing and soon we'llbe manufacturing all of our
ventilators here in Fargo, andour goal is to onshore 100% of
all of our components within thenext five years.
(32:52):
So everything in our ventilatorwill be designed, manufactured
and all the components will be100% made in the USA.
That's our goal, so we canprotect our supply lines.
have a great, made in Americabrand and a, a very highly
reliable, dependable ventilator.
Pat Kothe (33:09):
Rich, a few things in there.
So when you designed or when theproduct was designed, um, uh, I
believe the most criticalaspects were taken into account.
These are the absolute criticalthings.
With the existing products outthere, the existing ventilators
that are out there, how do youcompare in terms of being, I'll
(33:30):
use the term full featuredversus critical components?
So how do you, how do youcompare between those?
Rich Walsh (33:37):
So our Emergency Use Authorization, which is called
the Respond 19 ventilator, hadthe bare minimum bells and
whistles.
Over the past 20 to 30 years,ventilator companies have
differentiated themselves, notby major, differentiation in
technology, but by small bellsand whistles, like a different
(34:01):
type of alarm or a differenttype of breath mode or a the
appearance of it, the packaging,if you will.
We decided that was an importantthat, our primary mission was
simple to use no maintenance,and highly reliable and
sophisticated ventilation.
And when we put that through theprocess with the FDA, they
(34:23):
recognized that.
They didn't give us a backupdesignation.
When we received emergency useauthorization, they gave us
primary ventilatorauthorization, or approval, or
clearance, I should say.
Unlike other companies thatrushed these products through,
we had all the most criticalcomponents.
(34:45):
The alarms were very precise.
The response times on the breathmodes were very precise.
And it was very simple to use.
And so, uh, you know, when welaunched, when we started
selling in January of 2021, wewas selling against the major
brands, even though we, thatwasn't our intention, we would
(35:07):
just intended to go out and,fill the gap if you will, but my
engineers gave us a verypowerful technology that we've
since improved on and we'regetting ready here in the next
30 days, we're going to belaunching a 510K ventilator,
that will rival ventilators thatcost two to three times the
amount that, ours will cost.
(35:29):
We went from having a mission ofsimple yet sophisticated and
highly reliable.
And now we have all of the, allthe most desirable
characteristics.
that again, that ventilatorsthat are made in places like
Germany, Switzerland, which arethe Mercedes Benz, if you will,
(35:51):
of ventilators, we compete withthem.
We're on the same level,
Pat Kothe (35:55):
What's interesting?
Rich Walsh (35:56):
fraction of the cost.
Pat Kothe (35:57):
What's interesting about that is, is when you,
typically when you skip a step,when you skip the customer
discovery phase, which you, youwere forced to do, you missed
the mark on some things.
so having the ability to go backnow, once the feature, the less
featured product, you knew whatthose main things were, now
(36:20):
you're able to go back and doyour customer discovery and say,
okay, what it, we're in themarket, we know some things, but
now we're going to go back outand find out what we really need
to put on this.
Because you don't want to putbloat on a machine.
Rich Walsh (36:33):
No.
Pat Kothe (36:33):
You just want to have the things that are important to
your customer.
Rich Walsh (36:36):
Yeah.
And we did miss the mark on ourEUA ventilator.
The EUA ventilator, didn't haveall the nice to haves, and it
was designed specifically totreat patients that had COVID.
That's it.
But when we launched, we figuredit out that we could treat more
than just patients with COVID.
(36:57):
We could do it verysuccessfully, but if we were
going to, If we were going tostay in this business, we had to
improve, and that's what we havein our 510K ventilator.
We have a full featured, top ofthe line critical care
ventilator that's going to beavailable at the end of this
year.
Pat Kothe (37:15):
That's a 510k product.
It's going to be available.
You're still out there sellingis the EU.
is that expired at this point oris you still able to sell?
Rich Walsh (37:24):
So we made a decision at the beginning of
this year to stop selling theEUA ventilators.
They declared the pandemic wasover.
and we decided to pour most ofthe company's resources not into
the commercial side.
But into the R& D side and themanufacturing side.
As a result, again, in recordtime, in about a year, we did
(37:45):
what it takes most companiesthree to five years, and that's
develop a full line criticalcare ventilator.
We also have been focusing onmoving from 3, 000 square feet
of space here at the researchpark at North Dakota State
University.
We're going to be moving into a17, 000 square foot state of the
art facility here in Fargo,where all of our R& D will be
(38:08):
done, all of our manufacturing,warehousing, shipping, sales,
marketing, admin, everythingwill be done in one facility.
And it'll be brand new.
It'll be, the most state of theart ventilation manufacturing
facility, certainly in theUnited States and maybe the
world.
Pat Kothe (38:25):
What went into the decision to locate the company
in Fargo?
Rich Walsh (38:30):
Ah, that's a long story.
And I like to start the storyoff
Pat Kothe (38:34):
keep it short.
Rich Walsh (38:35):
Of course it's the climate, right?
And then I follow it up with,it's the business climate.
The state of North Dakota isreally a hidden, hidden gem.
The majority of the, thebusiness here in North Dakota is
agriculture and energy.
So they do a lot of fracking,and they do a lot of
agriculture.
(38:55):
As soon as you get outside ofFargo, it's, it's typical.
it's, soybean, it's corn, it'scows, and it's sugar beets.
So they know that's not thefuture.
They know that they have toestablish other verticals.
And so I met with, a gentleman,his name is Richard Glenn, in
mid 2021.
(39:17):
He's the business developmentguy and runs the Bioscience
Association of North Dakota, andit's his vision to create a
bioscience cluster in NorthDakota.
And you think about three hourssouth of Fargo is the Twin
Cities, and they do 10 plusbillion dollars a year in med
(39:37):
device and life sciencetransactions.
Three, three hours north of TwinCities, there was nothing
happening here in Fargo.
Although, there were companieslike Eldevron, which, that's a
home run.
That was a nine billion dollartransaction, not too long ago.
We got some state funding tohelp us get established here.
We've had support all the wayfrom the federal level with the
(40:00):
senators and the congressman allthe way down into, the state
senators, the state,representatives, and even the
mayor here in Fargo, who's asurgeon who was very exciting to
see us move in, and you know,we've had the ability to build a
little, a company here withouthaving the same, issues that you
(40:21):
have if you were doing a startupon the West Coast, like in Palo
Alto, or you were down in theTwin Cities, or you were in
Boston, or you were in theResearch Triangle.
I wasn't competing for resourcesthere, or here, that those other
companies were competing for,there was maybe two or three med
device companies in the area.
We all worked together.
(40:41):
Now, 18 months later, all of asudden is there's a dozen med
device companies rolling intoFargo.
And, we're putting a littlecluster together here.
It was just the path of leaseresistance.
And also, the ability not justto start a company, but to help
grow an ecosystem.
(41:01):
Just like the bioscience,program at Stanford in Palo
Alto, they've got anunbelievable machine just
cranking out startups.
My vision is I think that'llhappen here in North Dakota
someday in Fargo.
And, we're working with RichardGlynn at the Bioscience
Association.
we've been able to start thatout.
And we've got great, again,great support from everybody
(41:24):
here in the state.
Pat Kothe (41:25):
You've, we started off talking about, your
experience with differentcompanies and what you've
learned with differentcompanies.
You are building a company fromscratch.
And one of the things that we dowhen we build a company from
scratch, and now you're in adifferent community, is we have
the ability to form our culture,to, to, set the expectations for
(41:47):
who we are as a company, what westand for, and what we do.
How did you approach that whenyou started, the first time CEO,
you've known a few things,you've seen what works, what
hasn't worked.
How did you approach culture?
Rich Walsh (42:01):
Look, I'm not the smartest guy.
walking around here and Isurrounded myself to start off.
I was very lucky again.
My engineers are brilliant.
You the guys that started thiscompany, John and Eddie Ruppel
and some of the others that gotthese ventilators going, I'm
just amazed by the things thatthey come up with and how they
(42:21):
overcome obstacles.
And I realized that if I canhire the smartest, brightest,
most motivated people, to seedthe company, and that's what
we're doing here.
We moved some people here.
I was very lucky.
I hired some great embeddedsoftware engineers out of John
Deere, that have really helpedus get this 510k vent across the
(42:42):
line.
But also a big part of ourmission here is to grow the
ecosystem for life science.
So we've been hiring, last yearwe had 8 interns out of North
Dakota State University, thisyear we have 8 interns, plus 2
Ph.
D.
students, plus I have an internout of University of North
(43:04):
Dakota in Grand Forks, and weinterviewed hundreds.
We had 270 interns interviewwith us.
In January of this year, and wesettled on eight and five of
them were engineers, two weremarketing and one was finance.
(43:26):
And we're unbelievably blessed.
Today's actually the last day.
And they gave their end of, endof internship presentations.
And, we've uncovered someincredible talent we've actually
hired, I think it was three,three of our interns from the
last.
intern program when theygraduated locally here.
We kept them in Fargo, becausethey love it here.
(43:48):
People come to Fargo.
It's a great family environment.
Yeah, the weather's a littleaustere in the wintertime, You
live with it.
You, you know, you kind of copewith it I think it allows my
people to focus more on work forthree or four months that it's
really terrible outside.
They come to work and they, theywork long hours and we have a
good time and, and I leteverybody participate.
(44:10):
And so at the beginning of theinternship, we dialed this
internship program in.
really tight.
The first year was a littleloose.
We didn't get the results wewanted.
Second year, we stepped it upand we had criteria that
everybody had to meet.
We set SMART goals at thebeginning.
Everybody had to hit those SMARTgoals.
We paid more than anybody elsefor interns.
(44:33):
We attracted the best talent.
We give bonuses at the end ofthe program.
And now I'm making offer lettersfor the ones that are seniors.
They're rising seniors, they'regoing into their senior year,
and I'm, I'm writing offerletters to these engineers
saying, look, when you graduate,you've got a home and it's
unbelievable.
The response has beenphenomenal.
(44:54):
Again, we had about 70 peopleinterviewed the first year.
We had over 250 interviewed thesecond year.
and, we were building a greatculture and we've got a great
mix of senior people and nowreally junior people.
And you learn so much from thejunior people.
You learn the whole SaaS side ofthings.
One of my marketing interns gavea presentation today, we were
(45:18):
all blown away by it.
The engineering interns, theywere blown away by it.
Even the finance, our financeguy, just super committed, super
enthusiastic.
We did a great job in pickingthe right people and, they have
really taken us to, anotherlevel.
They've infused a huge amount ofenergy into the organization.
I listen to everybody.
(45:38):
I take all the interns out,one-on-one for lunch to get to
know'em, and I will always dothat.
Take the time, get to knowpeople and what makes'em tick,
their families and such, whatmotivates'em.
And, I look at it, this is kindof like a family or company.
We're very lucky.
Pat Kothe (45:56):
So you said you've, you tuned it in from year one to
year two.
In, in, in other intern programsthat, that I've been involved
with different companies, theinterns have been given very,
menial tasks, so to speak.
And the expectations, aren'tvery high.
it's more, from an internalstandpoint, you're not really
(46:20):
getting anything.
You're giving somebody anopportunity.
You're not getting a whole lotback.
Tell me about what you dodifferent to turn that around.
Rich Walsh (46:31):
We actually, we do get a whole lot back and I will
tell you because we decided thatwe were not going to have, I
decided.
A year ago that, our next batchof interns, they were going to
learn a lot and that we weregoing to learn a lot from them,
and it's cross functional.
We've got engineering, we've gotquality, we've got marketing,
(46:53):
everybody working together.
They're learning a lot of newtechnologies and new techniques
at the university that some ofmy senior engineers just don't
know, and vice versa.
These engineering interns areleaving here with all sorts of
different types of programs thatthey had a chance to use that we
spent hundreds of thousands ofdollars on that they don't have
(47:16):
at the university.
So it's a very healthy exchangeof information and, um, just
life experience, if you will.
What's.
Also helped us, we've got somegreat PhD candidates that are
working and they're right inthere with the undergraduate
interns.
So you watch them and they wereall learning, they're all
(47:38):
learning together.
And then, we hired a lot of theengineering interns to do our
FDA testing or help us with ourFDA testing or a V&V.
So they.
they come in here with a, arudimentary knowledge of
engineering and we put it towork immediately and all of a
(47:58):
sudden it's real world and allof a sudden everything's
clicking.
Everything's oh, that's why wedid that.
Oh, that's why we did that.
I think that we wouldn't bewhere we are without our, we
wouldn't be ready to submit for510K without our interns.
And we wouldn't be ready tolaunch commercially without our
510k interns or our engineeringand marketing interns.
(48:23):
I just think that it'stransformational if you set it
up right and you treat them asemployees, not as interns.
And you treat them as a, and youlet them, you give them a task
and let them run.
Now, what you do have to do isyou got to watch them closely
because sometimes they're, theydon't communicate as well and
they dig themselves into a holeand then they just sit in the
(48:45):
hole and wait for something tohappen.
Hope, hopefully something goodwill happen, so you got to watch
them very closely.
You got to teach them tocommunicate.
this new generation, nextgeneration communicates very
differently than we do.
I would just go knock on thedoor.
nobody will knock on my door,they'll slack me, they'll text
me, they'll email me, and when Isee an email that's three or
(49:05):
four hours old that I haven'tresponded to, I feel terrible
because I, I think, I, in mymind I'm thinking they've been
sitting there for three hoursstaring at that, waiting for, I,
that's why I tell them, justcome knock on my door, come walk
in, grab me at lunchtime, let'stalk about it, don't email me,
but be proactive.
Time is money, and we got a lotof things that we want to do
(49:28):
here.
Move forward.
Always keep moving forward.
And, nobody will ever say, Don'tbother me.
Everybody's, just give me aminute.
Or, let's get together at lunch.
Let's get together at, after theday is over.
They have to communicate, andwe've taught them how to do
that.
They're not afraid.
(49:50):
They are used to seeing the CEO,having lunch with the CEO,
having dinner with the CEO,going out, going to a base, we
take them to the baseball gameslocally here, and we do a lot of
fun things with them.
So they mature socially.
Pat Kothe (50:03):
So to kind of, kind of come back full circle.
on this, when you started yourcareer and you started your
career and you had, you werelooking to Leon Hirsch and you
were looking at expectations,high expectations that were set
for you, a massive, massiveamount of training that, that
you did and helping people to besuccessful.
(50:27):
In essence, that's what, that'sthe culture that you're
building.
So it goes all the way back toyour first job, your US surgical
job, and you're, and now you aredoing what you were taught.
Rich Walsh (50:40):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know what?
Because we were very successful.
So why reinvent the wheel?
Pat Kothe (50:46):
There
Rich Walsh (50:46):
You know, It's not easy to do what we do.
having a really high standard,24 7, and a huge amount of
energy, 24 7, and a positiveattitude, even when times really
are terrible, having a positiveattitude, that, knowing that
you're going to be successful,that's not always easy, but if
(51:08):
you do that, you can get intothe red zone and you can, score
a touchdown.
Pat Kothe (51:13):
thanks so much for a really fun conversation.
a lot of great points coming outof here.
I want to ask you one finalthing, and that is, We're
talking about culture here, andYou know, you're the leader of
the group and you're setting it.
Your senior managers are settingit as well.
But then you've got theseinterns.
(51:34):
You've got young people, and noteveryone's a leader to be able
to set things.
Some of us are followers atdifferent points.
So how can the followers be goodstewards of the culture, what
can they do to help reinforceand build, build the culture
that, that they're, that theywant to see?
Rich Walsh (51:55):
I think everybody can lead in one way or another.
If somebody is quiet, you, youthink, okay, they're not a
leader, they're a follower, butit might just be communication,
right?
It may, they may be a leader.
There's all sorts of differentexamples.
Most recently I watched themovie Oppenheimer, right?
Went to see Oppenheimer.
You didn't think he was aleader, but he was.
(52:16):
know, this guy was a real deepthinker.
He was, a genius.
But he led us across the finishline.
He did something that wasimpossible in a record amount of
time.
And, I think that all pods havea leader.
And, if you put five followersin a room together, somebody's
gonna become a leader.
(52:36):
Because they're not all going tojust like walk in circles and
not get something done.
Somebody's going to pop up.
So, I think everybody's gottheir time to shine.
And everybody, everybody hassome leadership ability in them.
And it's all about opportunity.
If you give them the opportunityto lead in one way or the other.
It's many different examples ofhow you can be a leader, right?
(52:59):
And so I like to think ofeverybody can be a leader in one
way or another, and everybodycan shine in one way or the
other.
You just have to give them theability to do that and the
opportunity to do that.
Pat Kothe (53:12):
As I mentioned at the beginning, transitions are
fascinating to me.
Rich personally and the Corventteam are going through them.
If you listen carefully, youheard how we have people and
experiences that prepare us forchange.
We just need to learn from them.
(53:32):
A few of my take-aways.
First, the foundation on whichRich built his career.
The U.S.'s.
U.
S.
Army and U.
S.
Surgical.
His career has been built on afoundation of discipline, high
expectations, andaccountability.
But also the interesting thingwas the leaders who are open and
(53:56):
helpful has also really informedhis decision to be a leader and
how he leads a company.
Second, the internship program.
And he mentioned how they beganit.
and changed it and evolved it toget exactly what they want out
of it.
And it comes back to they havehigh expectations for this
(54:18):
program and for the candidates.
They've got quality candidatesthat are coming in and they're
developing a reputation to bringadditional quality candidates
in.
What it allows them to do isreally get a first look at these
candidates that are coming inand provide offers to people who
really are going to be highperformers in there.
What that leads to is he's in,he's in an area where people
(54:41):
want to stay.
So it's going to provide a, youknow, a great workforce, but a
stable workforce.
People who want to be in thatecosystem.
The final thing is brutalfeedback.
And we talked about howimportant the feedback that Rich
received early in his careerreally helped him to be a more
(55:03):
effective communicator, a moreeffective leader, uh, and a more
effective team member, uh, inthe companies that he's in.
So, even though we may notsometimes like to hear things.
It's things that we need to hearthat make us better people.
So ask for it, ask for thatbrutal feedback, listen and
(55:23):
reflect carefully on it.
Do not be defensive.
What you're putting out theremay be something that is a blind
spot for you.
So make sure that you're, you'reunderstanding how you're being
viewed and then make thenecessary changes to make
yourself a more effectiveleader.
Thank you for listening.
Make sure you get episodesdownloaded to your device
(55:46):
automatically by liking orsubscribing to the Mastering
Medical Device podcast whereveryou get your podcasts.
Also, please spread the word andtell a friend or two to listen
to the Mastering Medical Devicepodcast as interviews like
today's can help you become amore effective medical device
leader.
Work hard.
Be kind.
Wish you knew more about the medical device
industry and how you can do yourjob more effectively and put
your career on the fast track?
Then stay tuned while industryveteran Pat Kothe shares
strategies and tips fromcustomers and company insiders
who help drive the industry.
Now let's join Pat as heexplores how you can master
(00:28):
medical device.
Pat Kothe (00:31):
Welcome.
Transitions have alwaysfascinated me whether it's
personal or product or companyrelated.
What the past state was thetension that led to change, how
you prepare for change, takingthe leap, and then executing on
the new reality.
(00:52):
Our guest today is Rich Walsh,CEO of Corvent, a company that's
focused on providing solutionsin a ventilator market.
Rich has a long history in salesand sales management.
We'll get into that in thisconversation.
And he's now transitioned fromsales to become a first-time
CEO.
At the same time, Rich and theteam are transitioning from
(01:15):
providing a ventilator forCOVID, to a full feature
product.
In our conversation, we discussthe foundation of his career and
the importance of discipline,openness and leader engagement,
how direct feedback can make orbreak a career, locating a
(01:36):
company in a nontraditional cityand state, building an
internship program that benefitsthe company as well as the
interns, and leadership lessonslearned from legends in our
industry.
Here's our conversation.
Rich, welcome to the podcast.
Rich Walsh (01:57):
Thanks, Pat.
It's great to be here with you.
Pat Kothe (01:58):
So Rich, you began your career in two very
demanding organizations, the U.
S.
Army and another U.
S.
U.
S.
Surgical.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhat it was like to be in, in
the army and kind of what youdid in the army and then how it
prepared you for the demands ofU.
S.
Surgical.
Rich Walsh (02:20):
It's crazy.
I never thought of it that way,but you totally nailed it.
I was young when I was in thearmy I was a pilot and an
officer and, the really had theopportunity to explore and do
some really cool things aroundthe world, but you always had
that military pressure.
You always had the rules, theregulations, the chain of
(02:42):
command, and, I was a warrantofficer, which is a little bit
different than a commissionedofficer.
Warrant officers are highlyspecialized individuals who do
things like they fly or they,they run boat operations and
they have a very specific, job.
I really think that the armyreally prepared me well for U.
S.
Surgical now that I think of it,because when I got to U.
(03:04):
S.
Surgical, it was very, we werevery buttoned up.
it was a suit every day.
it was, you were never late.
we had six weeks of training andit was it was bootcamp.
We called it U.
S.
Surgical Bootcamp.
We went away, we were lockeddown.
We didn't see our families forsix weeks.
(03:25):
We learned everything from AORNstandards to scrubbing in.
We used to scrub in onprocedures.
I scrubbed in on surgicalprocedures with the doctors and
the nurses.
and there was just a really highlevel of regimentation as well
as, policies, procedures, justlike the army.
Pat Kothe (03:46):
And the, expectations in that training course were
extremely high.
So tell a little bit about theexpectations and if you did not
meet expectations, whathappened?
Rich Walsh (03:58):
yeah, So the joke was, who's not going to be here
tomorrow.
And we would, typically if youdidn't get a 90.
or above on every test on everyFriday, you would have to retake
the test, usually within a dayor two.
If you didn't get a 90, you weregone.
And now, so it was kind of likethe army, you know, it was like
(04:20):
you, you left your prior, job,you signed up for this deal.
If you didn't pass, you were outand now you're out looking for
another job.
And U.
S.
Surgical is just like that.
In fact, the final exam was a95.
If you didn't get a 95 on thefinal exam, which was hours
long, encompassing six weeksworth of hands on plus written
(04:42):
work, you were gone.
And we used to have like on aFriday, people would, there was
so much pressure, just like themilitary.
We would take the test firstthing Friday morning, and
literally we'd come back fromlunch and people would be
missing from the class and it'sbecause they were asked to leave
because they cracked under thepressure or they couldn't grasp
(05:03):
everything.
The military is like that,you're in a very high pressure
situation.
So, the military very much soprepared me, for, a very
successful run at U.
S.
Surgical.
When I went through, Mr.
Hirsch was running the companystill, and it was tight, and if
you weren't tight, you weregone.
And, I will say, Hirsch was thebest CEO I ever worked for.
(05:28):
you know, He was the consummatesales guy.
He was in there with you.
he taught me, really.
He taught me a lot, but, and Iwas just a junior sales guy.
I was watching from afar.
but, he was all, he had apresence.
For a short guy, he had apresence.
And, it's the way I run mycompany here today.
(05:49):
Very tight.
Pat Kothe (05:49):
What's really interesting is the first company
that you worked for, has so muchimpact on you.
And the first company for me inmedical device was American
Hospital Supply.
And I felt the same way asyou're describing things, I felt
the same way about AmericanHospital Supply.
It was to me, the best companythat I've ever worked for.
Now, that's from the standpointof I'm a newbie coming in, but,
(06:13):
but, but the, the number ofpeople that have gone on to have
phenomenal careers that spenttime and were trained at
American Hospital Supply aregreat.
Same as U.
S.
Surgical and so many of thelessons that you learn early on
about expectations andcamaraderie and culture, all of
these things that are soimportant and training and
(06:35):
Customer relationships.
We're so lucky that they werebuilt into us at such an early
age.
Rich Walsh (06:43):
Absolutely.
And you know, it really became afamily, and it still is, I have
people here at Corvent Medical,that I worked with 30 years ago.
They're part of my team atCorvent, people that my chief
marketing officer She was ajunior marketing person at U.
S.
Surgical 30 years ago, and I mether in Norwalk, Connecticut And
(07:04):
we stayed in touch, and you knowshe's phenomenal.
One of my last CEOs was one ofmy peers Bill Facto who ran
Aclarrent and now Ear Lens just,impeccable, presence, impeccable
presentation, very detailoriented and a passion for
medical device.
(07:24):
If you don't have a passion formedical device and you're at the
top, you're not going tosucceed.
And I've always had a passion, adeep passion for medical device
and, being able to help peopleand make a difference.
Pat Kothe (07:37):
I want to talk about your career because it is a
really interesting career andtalk about passion for medical
device.
Perclose, Intuitive,Stereotaxis, Atricure,
Acclarent, Neotrack,MedRobotics, and now Corvent.
So some extremely recognizable,successful companies, We all
(07:57):
move, we don't stay with onecompany.
Most of us don't stay with onecompany.
But when you look at yourcareer, is there a common thread
of why you move to differentthings?
is.
there something that's commonamongst those things?
Rich Walsh (08:11):
There is.
And most of my moves, the vastmajority of my moves were,
because there was a transactionthat had taken place.
So Abbott bought Perclose.
So Perclose was my firststartup.
Coming out of U.
S.
Surgical.
And I really look at U.
S.
Surgical as a startup, eventhough it had been going for
years.
There was a strongentrepreneurial spirit.
(08:31):
There was a...
It was, even though it wasn't aflat organization, and it was a
lot of structure, you hadaccess.
I could pick up the phone andcall Mr.
Hirsch as a junior sales guy.
I could call him and ask him forhelp, ask him his opinion, ask
him, how would you approachthis?
Cause Hirsch loved to teach, andthat has always been a
(08:52):
cornerstone of every companythat I've been involved in.
But I've left companiestypically when they were
transitioning from a startup toa much bigger organization and
Aclarrent, a great example.
Aclarrent was purchased byJohnson and Johnson.
Pretty early on, I, I made thedecision.
I didn't want to work for acompany where, I was a number, I
(09:14):
wanted to work for a companythat, that I knew who the CEO
was.
And I reported to the CEO.
Same thing with, uh.
You know, um, all the way backto Perclose when Abbott bought
Perclose, and that was my firsttransaction, made some money on
the stock.
From there, it was kind of offto the races on, I knew that I
(09:34):
wasn't going to be able to makeit to the next level, at a
company like J& J or it just,the probabilities were low,
whereas in a small organization,I could make a high impact and
be recognized and move up theladder quickly.
Novel technologies is what Ilove.
I love, like today we just had ameeting with our IP attorneys
(09:58):
here at Corvent.
We write IP every day.
We're building a picket fencearound our business, around our
products, making sure that weinvent.
I love when my engineers gettogether with my IP guys and
gals, and they just starttalking about, we did this, we
did that.
And they're like, wow, that'snovel.
Let's write some IP around that.
(10:19):
And that's the really cool thingabout it because you can make a
difference.
You can, help people.
You can make a difference withthese new technologies.
I've learned that over theyears, at Acclarent, when we
first got Acclarent up andrunning, we were putting out a
minimum of one new product everyquarter.
One new product every quarter.
We went new balloons.
(10:40):
We went new introducers, we wentnew guide wires.
We, then we started doing allsorts of other tech lighted
guide wires.
so we always had something newand that's what a sales guy or
gal wants, right?
They want to something new intheir hand to go show their
customer, their best customer,go right to the best customer
and start pitching it anddetailing it.
And then, selling it up theladder and then going out and,
(11:02):
having something that theircompetition doesn't have.
To work their way into thatecosystem that they could never
get into.
And having something that isdifferentiated is a beautiful
thing because, it allows greatopportunities to make new
friends, new customers and, andgrow your business.
Pat Kothe (11:19):
So you came up the sales side.
You spent most of your career inthe sales side before you got
PK - Rich Walsh (11:24):
into
Pat Kothe (11:25):
management and senior sales positions.
So it sounds like you, you knewwhat you wanted early on.
you're more of a startup personthan you're more of a, a hunter
than a gatherer.
You like the, the excitement atthe front end.
What was it about the startup?
Is it the risk?
(11:46):
Is it the newness?
What is it about startups that,that has, has you so, um,
enthralled with that part of thebusiness?
Rich Walsh (11:54):
It's interesting because I never really thought
it was a lot of risk.
I never saw it as risk.
I always knew I had enoughconfidence that, okay, if this
doesn't work out, I'll go findanother job really fast.
And I've never had a problemfinding another job.
And I'm blessed from thatstandpoint.
I've never really been out ofwork.
(12:15):
It's just the excitement ofthese new technologies and the
excitement of learning more andthe excitement of, taking a new
technology to a clinician and,getting them to buy in on the
concept.
it's not like you change theparadigm.
If you have a truly noveltechnology, you can change the
paradigm of how they go abouttreating a patient, doing
(12:38):
surgery or, therapeutic side ofthings.
And a great example is ourventilators.
We started this company at thebeginning of the pandemic, and,
we knew that we needed to haveventilators that could help,
patients that had COVID and thatwere easy to use and rapidly
deployable.
Me and my team got vaccinatedright out of the gates because
(13:00):
we wanted to get back into theICU.
We wanted to get back in thehospital.
As soon as we could find outwhere we could get vaccinated.
We went, we got vaccinated, andwe were one of the few medical
companies that were allowed backinto a hospital.
Nobody else could getvaccinated, but we were in there
with our ventilators.
We were in the long term acutecare facilities and the nursing
(13:22):
facilities and the hospitals.
Selling ventilators and showingthese people how they can save
lives with our technology.
And that's very rewarding.
Again, a great CEO.
I worked for Lonnie Smith atintuitive, Lonnie, came out of
Boston Consulting and when hewas leaving Boston Consulting,
he had two or three differentopportunities and, he asked his
(13:43):
daughter, and this is the storyhe told me, he said, where
should I go?
And he laid it all out.
And she said, dad, where can youmake the biggest impact?
And he said, I think with thisrobotics company and now here we
are.
That was 90, 1997.
I joined in 1999, before we had510K.
I was out talking to doctors in1999, in theory about a robot.
(14:10):
We didn't have 510K, and I'mknocking on doors with all the
laparoscopic surgeons I knew, upand down the East Coast.
Actually, the whole, I had thewhole U.
S.
at the time.
I was the only sales guy atIntuitive.
I was the first sales guy atIntuitive, knocking on doors,
talking to doctors about aproduct that didn't even exist,
only in theory and on a patent,and, started getting traction,
(14:32):
which is amazing.
It's such a cool story.
Pat Kothe (14:35):
I can remember, meeting Joe DeVivo at the U.
S.
Surgical, offices before, beforethe robots were really going.
And he, and then he made themove into robotics at that
point.
So Yeah.
it is, having that, ability tolook back, and see how far we've
come is really, reallyinteresting.
So I want to go, I want to goback a little bit in your career
(14:56):
as well.
So you started off as a salesrep, started off as an
individual contributor, and manytimes in our career, we don't
know what we want to be when wefirst get there.
We're just happy to have the joband learning along.
But at some point in time, asyou're selling, you thought,
geez, I see myself doingsomething greater.
What was that, and was that...
(15:18):
People management.
how did you say, I want to dosomething greater.
I want to help, help myself inmy career.
Rich Walsh (15:24):
Yeah.
I think, and I've never reallythought about it, but now that
I'm thinking about it, I thinkit goes back to, again, US
Surgical was huge on education.
And teaching and learning.
I took to the med device world,like a duck to water and love
just the whole technical aspectsof it and the physiological
aspects and the bioscience sideof it.
(15:47):
And then, I really enjoyedteaching new salespeople that
would come out and work with mein the field.
And I think I looked at myselfmore as an educator at first.
and a good team member, thenbeing a leader, but then
eventually, other people saw theleadership qualities in me and
(16:09):
said, Rich, we'd like you totake over the Mid Atlantic
region.
Then we'd like you to take overthe East Coast and then, you get
into positions where you'rerunning a big team, a hundred
salespeople and training peopleand education people.
And you start learning all thenuances of a startup, everything
from, how do you build a qualitymanagement systems and how do
you, and that really intriguedme learning all these new
(16:31):
aspects of how quality foldsinto development of the
technology and how the marketingside plays into it.
And, most CEOs that, that I'veworked for either had finance
backgrounds or marketingbackgrounds, very few had sales
backgrounds.
And I was one of the few guyswho worked my way into a CEO
role from a sales position, andI think it's just because I had,
(16:57):
I had spent a lot of time withthe marketing people.
I had spent a lot of time crossfunctionally.
I love hanging out with theengineers.
I've got a dozen engineers hereat Corvent, and I love spending
a lot of time with them.
Everything from the softwareengineers to the mechanical
engineers to the electricalengineers.
I learned something new everyday and I just love that the
tech side of it.
Pat Kothe (17:18):
Was that something that, that you recognized that
you wanted to do?
So you had, you had, you had anobjective.
I want to be a CEO and I, and Ineed to build these skills up.
Rich Walsh (17:29):
At a certain point, I think I was probably in my mid
40s.
I was thinking to myself, I'mstill carrying this bag around.
Yeah, I'm a, vice president ofsales, but I'm still banging on
doors.
Wouldn't it be cool?
The work your way into, to Csuite and either a COO or CEO
position.
My last company, didn't farewell because of the pandemic.
(17:52):
We ran out of money.
when I started redoing my resumeright as the pandemic hit in
January, February of 2020, Isaid to myself, you know what,
I'm not going to go for anothervice president role.
I want to just shoot for themoon and go for a CEO role.
I know I can do it.
I've hung around enough greatCEOs, to, you know, what made
(18:13):
them successful.
And I've been around enoughmarketing people now to, know
the nuances of that andeverything.
And I'm a, by nature, I'm agearhead.
I was a mechanic.
I was an airplane mechanicbefore I went into the, the
army.
So I love the technical side ofit.
And so I was like, you knowwhat, I got this.
And so I put on my resume, I'm,I'm looking for a CEO position.
(18:37):
And a recruiter called me andsaid, Hey, I have a chief, sales
officer position for a companyCorvent Medical.
And I said, who did they reportto?
And they said, we don't have aCEO yet.
Pat Kothe (18:49):
Bingo.
Rich Walsh (18:50):
I'll interview for the CEO role.
And the rest is kind of history.
I ran him over, went to thefounders, met with the founders
and pitched myself as a CEO.
And, the rest is history andnever looked back.
It, I should have done it when Iwas 40 something, but I love
doing it.
And, uh, you know, it's just,it's been a great ride.
Pat Kothe (19:12):
So it sounds like, many of the CEOs that you've
been in their organizations,you've learned a lot from.
Were they mentors?
Did you have other mentorsoutside the organization?
What's your view on mentorship?
Rich Walsh (19:26):
Bill Facto probably had the biggest impact on me
because there was a lot of timeshe'd sit me down and say, okay,
let me help you with this.
This isn't, this is not the wayyou should be doing this.
And he took the time to educateme on how I should be, managing
and leading and how to maneuverwithin an organization more
(19:48):
effectively, if you will, andclimb the ladder.
I think that I learned fromwatching.
I don't learn from reading abook.
I usually learn from making thesame mistake twice and then
committing defective, I'm notgoing to make it a third time,
you know, and yeah, I, I make itonce and I say, Oh, that was an
accident.
I make it a second time, said,Oh, that's a trend.
(20:09):
And I shouldn't do that again.
And so I learned from observing,and.
I take away a lot of, I'velearned a lot of the great
things that CEOs can do, andI've learned a lot of the not so
great things that CEOs can do.
And, it's the third rail.
I've watched some CEOs make somemassive mistakes, and that's
(20:29):
stored in the back of my mind,and I just, move away from that
and move towards the light,right?
Move towards the things thatI've seen the really good CEOs
do and, follow their lead, ifyou will.
Pat Kothe (20:40):
So you mentioned something that's, uh, that's
really important.
And that is direct feedback.
because as managers, or aspeople, you like to deliver good
news, but the more valuable isthe bad news, or the
developmental errors.
It can be couched differently,but direct feedback is so
(21:03):
important to our growth.
So, you mentioned, You know, onething.
What's the most, um, Directfeedback that you got that you
didn't understand about yourselfor the situation that made you
grow the most.
Rich Walsh (21:21):
I have a really dry sense of humor and when you have
a really dry sense of humor,sometimes people get it and
other people don't get it.
And they, they see a cynical.
So I would be in meetings and Iwould, unleash some dry humor
sometimes.
And, half the group would get itand the other half would think
you're negative or cynical.
And so I learned to just,suppress that.
(21:42):
And that was, that's probablythe biggest thing that, there's
a time and a place for the humorand just button it up and just
keep your mouth shut and, havepositive input.
when appropriate.
I think that's probably thebiggest lesson that I've
learned.
Pat Kothe (21:57):
Do you remember who gave that, who gave that
feedback to you?
Rich Walsh (22:00):
oh yeah,
Pat Kothe (22:00):
How'd you feel when you were getting that feedback?
Rich Walsh (22:03):
it was.
It was like I got hit over thehead with a hammer, but then, I
sat back and I said, okay, I getit.
And he had to give it to me likethree times, you know, it was
the first time I go in hisoffice and I was never afraid
again, I love sitting down andtalking to a CEO and picking
their brain and just getting toknow him.
(22:25):
And, the first time he, hementions it in passing the
second time, he's like, Hey, Imentioned to you once before.
And at the third time, it'slike, things aren't working out
here.
And here's the reason why.
And then I convinced him not tofire me and keep me on.
And I, I was the top producingsalesperson for the company, but
I had this super dry sense ofhumor and it could be considered
(22:47):
cynical and I changed it.
I said, you know what?
Like I said, sometimes it takesme three times.
Pat Kothe (22:52):
if he wouldn't, if he wouldn't have given you that,
that's probably the biggest gifthe could have given you for your
career.
If he wouldn't have given it toyou, where would you be today?
Rich Walsh (23:00):
Yeah, probably wouldn't be here.
Who knows?
I still carry a bag, so I don'tmind carrying a bag.
It's just that I'm having somuch fun now being the CEO and
growing a company from theground up.
I've always looked at myterritory as I'm the CEO of my
territory, buildingrelationships, hitting plan,
(23:21):
converting your competition.
I've always looked at, this ismy little fiefdom and I'm going
to run it.
And I'm going to use all theresources of the company.
And that's the big part also, ifyou don't know how to use the
resources of the company.
And you don't tap into that andstretch everybody.
The R& D, I, I'd bring engineersout in the field all the time.
(23:42):
I'd call them and
Pat Kothe (23:43):
they're the best salespeople,
Rich Walsh (23:45):
Oh, they're fantastic because everybody
takes them seriously.
They know they totally disarm acustomer who, doesn't want to be
sold.
You got the customers that yousay blue, they say red.
they move away from salespeople.
So you can bring the engineersin or the marketing people,
(24:06):
mostly the engineers, especiallyif you got a, a clinician or a
customer who's technicallyoriented and you drop an
engineer in their lap and youhit a home run.
One of my biggest investors atCoreVent is a scientist.
And, he came to visit before heinvested in Corvent I gave the
first 45 minute presentation andthen I let him wander off with
(24:31):
my chief technology officer.
they spent another hour and ahalf together and he closed the
deal.
I didn't close the deal.
My chief technology officer,who's brilliant.
He closed the deal for us to getthe financing that, that helped
really help Corvent pivot herein North Dakota.
Pat Kothe (24:51):
When you look at the best salespeople, they're the
conductor of the orchestra.
that's how you have to look
PK - Rich Walsh (24:56):
at
Pat Kothe (24:57):
it, is you've got the baton and you're bringing in the
strings when you need to bringin the strings and the brass
when you need.
So you're conducting all of thisto make, the beautiful music or
the sales coming in.
Rich Walsh (25:08):
Absolutely.
I've sold robots, I've soldvascular equipment.
I've sold staplers, laparoscopicequipment, ENT equipment.
and I've always saw theorthopedic guys.
They bring the tray in, theysaid, and nothing against the
orthopedics or anything, but Ijust never really saw the
innovation and, although theyplay a huge role in putting in
(25:30):
screws and putting in hips andputting in knees and shoulders
and everything.
I always wanted to be just alittle bit more, and I wanted to
make sure it worked for acompany where you have a
constant stream of new productsand you have a constant stream
of training and education.
What's the fastest way to asurgeon, converting them?
You educate them.
When I first became a manager USSurgical moved me down to the
(25:52):
Maryland area and I had JohnsHopkins as one of my accounts.
And, uh, Johns Hopkins was in acompetitive account at the time.
And I went, I met with the, Idon't know how I got in there,
but I got in to meet with thesurgeon in chief.
His name was Dr.
John Cameron at the time.
And this is again, back in like1996, 90, 94, 95, something like
(26:19):
that.
And, I got to Cameron by saying,look, I want to do.
suturing labs with yourresidents.
So I'd go out Saturday morning,5 AM, go to the store, buy pig's
feet, drag them up to the lab inHopkins and spend half a day on
a Saturday or a Sunday in asweaty lab, sweaty old smelly
(26:40):
lab with pig's feet, with theresidents showing them how to
suture.
And so showing them how tostaple.
And I converted Hopkins and thatmade me a lot of money, but that
also helped me to the next levelat U.
S.
Surgical.
Mr.
Hirsch came down, visited, hedonated money, we rebuilt the
(27:00):
Dr.
Blalock lab, and we did a lot ofcool things at Hopkins, and it
was all because I took the timeand just educated.
And I told Dr.
Cameron, I said, you know what,I just want to work with your
residents.
And if you don't buy anythingfrom me, that's fine.
because I know these residentsare going to go other places
and, they'll think about us whenthey make a decision on what
technologies they use.
(27:22):
And, you know, Cameron was toughand, he held us, at Bay for a
long time, but eventually we gotthe business and, uh, did it the
old fashioned way.
Pat Kothe (27:32):
Delivering value.
Sometimes that value is ourproduct.
Sometimes our value is ourservice, and sometimes our value
is our education.
If you have finding what thevalue is to them and delivering
that's how you build arelationship.
Rich Walsh (27:45):
Absolutely.
Pat Kothe (27:46):
So let's talk about Corvent.
We've talked a little bit aboutit, but, tell me about, what
problem you're solving, who thecustomers are, and you've got a
really interesting story on howthe company got started.
So let's spend some time talkingabout Corvent.
Rich Walsh (28:00):
So the company was started in March of 2020.
Pat Kothe (28:03):
What was going on then?
Rich Walsh (28:05):
a little thing called the global pandemic.
The U.
S.
government came to our founders,and we've got some really smart
guys.
One's a Hopkins trainedphysicist.
The other guy is a transplantcardiologist out of New York.
And the U.
S.
government went to them at anincubator called Caridia.
(28:30):
And Caridia's background is theydid a lot of startups that
involved vascular.
So it was a great company orstart up to go to.
And, they asked, they told them,Look, we need a real cost
effective ventilator.
We need it to be easy to use.
We need it to be rapidlydeployable.
And we need a lot of them reallyfast.
(28:51):
So the founders, Mark Gelfandand Howard Levin, Dr.
Levin got together and he foundsome high net worth individuals,
and they did the right thing.
They all put money into acompany called Corvent, and not
to make money, not to everexpect to make any money out of
it, but to build ventilators tosave lives worldwide.
(29:13):
And we did that.
I started with the company about90 days after it was founded.
I came on board and, Iunderstood when I came on board,
I said, you know, Hey, we've gotenough money to make this one
ventilator.
And then we got to start sellingthem.
And nobody ever said that theywere going to invest any more
money in us.
Nobody ever said there was nocommitments.
(29:33):
I was out of work, but yeah, Iknew this was my first shot at
being a CEO and I was ready.
I was fired up.
I wanted to help.
And this, this is a great story,right?
People were dying by thousandsand millions.
They needed ventilatorsworldwide.
So my engineering team, my CTO,John Mahoney, And his, small
(29:55):
group of engineers created aventilator that was super cost
effective, was super safe,required little to no,
experience on how to useventilators.
And that was the key.
Because during the pandemic, thecaregivers were becoming in the
patients, right?
The pulmonologists were gettingsick, the respiratory therapists
(30:17):
were getting sick.
The nurses, the doctors,everybody was getting sick, so
you needed a ventilator that wassuper easy to use, but
sophisticated enough to save alife.
So that was our mantra, simpleyet sophisticated.
And they designed a ventilatorin 90 days that made it through
(30:37):
the FDA EUA process in another90 days.
Pat Kothe (30:41):
EUA meaning.
Rich Walsh (30:43):
Emergency Use Authorization.
Yeah, and so they gotauthorization, we got it, and we
started building, ventilatorswith our partner Design Catapult
Manufacturing out in California.
And, we shipped hundreds ofthese around the world.
In fact, most recently we justshipped ventilators to the
Ukraine to help with theUkrainian people because they've
(31:05):
got a thousand hospitals thatare destroyed or heavily damaged
now.
So these ventilators, we builtthem very cost effectively.
We shipped them.
We have an unbelievablereliability.
One of the things that we wantedwith this vent was simple to use
so we could train anybody to useit in an hour or less.
Super reliable.
(31:25):
Requires no service ormaintenance ever.
So the entire lifespan of thisvent, which is five years, you
don't have to put another pennyinto it, ever.
And then, it was supersophisticated, so you could, you
could save a life with thisventilator.
In five minutes, you take it outof the box, set it up, and in
five minutes, you can have apatient on a ventilator.
(31:46):
And, so that was the goal, wehit it, we shipped the vents,
and, uh, you know, at thatpoint, one of my board members
said, Rich, I'm just notconvinced yet if it's going to
be a product or a company.
You accomplish what the goal wasand you saving lives, but what's
the next step for Corvent?
And, that really motivated meto, think about what, the
(32:08):
product portfolio can look like.
The pandemic uncovered massiveum, deficits in the ventilator,
business.
It was really four or five bigcompanies that were, in
ventilators, but there was verylittle innovation, very little
innovate.
It was a sleepy kind of world.
And, we are changing that, thevast majority of ventilators in
(32:32):
the world are not made byAmerican companies.
We're changing that.
We're bringing that back to theUnited States.
We're bringing it to Fargo,North Dakota.
We're designing and soon we'llbe manufacturing all of our
ventilators here in Fargo, andour goal is to onshore 100% of
all of our components within thenext five years.
(32:52):
So everything in our ventilatorwill be designed, manufactured
and all the components will be100% made in the USA.
That's our goal, so we canprotect our supply lines.
have a great, made in Americabrand and a, a very highly
reliable, dependable ventilator.
Pat Kothe (33:09):
Rich, a few things in there.
So when you designed or when theproduct was designed, um, uh, I
believe the most criticalaspects were taken into account.
These are the absolute criticalthings.
With the existing products outthere, the existing ventilators
that are out there, how do youcompare in terms of being, I'll
(33:30):
use the term full featuredversus critical components?
So how do you, how do youcompare between those?
Rich Walsh (33:37):
So our Emergency Use Authorization, which is called
the Respond 19 ventilator, hadthe bare minimum bells and
whistles.
Over the past 20 to 30 years,ventilator companies have
differentiated themselves, notby major, differentiation in
technology, but by small bellsand whistles, like a different
(34:01):
type of alarm or a differenttype of breath mode or a the
appearance of it, the packaging,if you will.
We decided that was an importantthat, our primary mission was
simple to use no maintenance,and highly reliable and
sophisticated ventilation.
And when we put that through theprocess with the FDA, they
(34:23):
recognized that.
They didn't give us a backupdesignation.
When we received emergency useauthorization, they gave us
primary ventilatorauthorization, or approval, or
clearance, I should say.
Unlike other companies thatrushed these products through,
we had all the most criticalcomponents.
(34:45):
The alarms were very precise.
The response times on the breathmodes were very precise.
And it was very simple to use.
And so, uh, you know, when welaunched, when we started
selling in January of 2021, wewas selling against the major
brands, even though we, thatwasn't our intention, we would
(35:07):
just intended to go out and,fill the gap if you will, but my
engineers gave us a verypowerful technology that we've
since improved on and we'regetting ready here in the next
30 days, we're going to belaunching a 510K ventilator,
that will rival ventilators thatcost two to three times the
amount that, ours will cost.
(35:29):
We went from having a mission ofsimple yet sophisticated and
highly reliable.
And now we have all of the, allthe most desirable
characteristics.
that again, that ventilatorsthat are made in places like
Germany, Switzerland, which arethe Mercedes Benz, if you will,
(35:51):
of ventilators, we compete withthem.
We're on the same level,
Pat Kothe (35:55):
What's interesting?
Rich Walsh (35:56):
fraction of the cost.
Pat Kothe (35:57):
What's interesting about that is, is when you,
typically when you skip a step,when you skip the customer
discovery phase, which you, youwere forced to do, you missed
the mark on some things.
so having the ability to go backnow, once the feature, the less
featured product, you knew whatthose main things were, now
(36:20):
you're able to go back and doyour customer discovery and say,
okay, what it, we're in themarket, we know some things, but
now we're going to go back outand find out what we really need
to put on this.
Because you don't want to putbloat on a machine.
Rich Walsh (36:33):
No.
Pat Kothe (36:33):
You just want to have the things that are important to
your customer.
Rich Walsh (36:36):
Yeah.
And we did miss the mark on ourEUA ventilator.
The EUA ventilator, didn't haveall the nice to haves, and it
was designed specifically totreat patients that had COVID.
That's it.
But when we launched, we figuredit out that we could treat more
than just patients with COVID.
(36:57):
We could do it verysuccessfully, but if we were
going to, If we were going tostay in this business, we had to
improve, and that's what we havein our 510K ventilator.
We have a full featured, top ofthe line critical care
ventilator that's going to beavailable at the end of this
year.
Pat Kothe (37:15):
That's a 510k product.
It's going to be available.
You're still out there sellingis the EU.
is that expired at this point oris you still able to sell?
Rich Walsh (37:24):
So we made a decision at the beginning of
this year to stop selling theEUA ventilators.
They declared the pandemic wasover.
and we decided to pour most ofthe company's resources not into
the commercial side.
But into the R& D side and themanufacturing side.
As a result, again, in recordtime, in about a year, we did
(37:45):
what it takes most companiesthree to five years, and that's
develop a full line criticalcare ventilator.
We also have been focusing onmoving from 3, 000 square feet
of space here at the researchpark at North Dakota State
University.
We're going to be moving into a17, 000 square foot state of the
art facility here in Fargo,where all of our R& D will be
(38:08):
done, all of our manufacturing,warehousing, shipping, sales,
marketing, admin, everythingwill be done in one facility.
And it'll be brand new.
It'll be, the most state of theart ventilation manufacturing
facility, certainly in theUnited States and maybe the
world.
Pat Kothe (38:25):
What went into the decision to locate the company
in Fargo?
Rich Walsh (38:30):
Ah, that's a long story.
And I like to start the storyoff
Pat Kothe (38:34):
keep it short.
Rich Walsh (38:35):
Of course it's the climate, right?
And then I follow it up with,it's the business climate.
The state of North Dakota isreally a hidden, hidden gem.
The majority of the, thebusiness here in North Dakota is
agriculture and energy.
So they do a lot of fracking,and they do a lot of
agriculture.
(38:55):
As soon as you get outside ofFargo, it's, it's typical.
it's, soybean, it's corn, it'scows, and it's sugar beets.
So they know that's not thefuture.
They know that they have toestablish other verticals.
And so I met with, a gentleman,his name is Richard Glenn, in
mid 2021.
(39:17):
He's the business developmentguy and runs the Bioscience
Association of North Dakota, andit's his vision to create a
bioscience cluster in NorthDakota.
And you think about three hourssouth of Fargo is the Twin
Cities, and they do 10 plusbillion dollars a year in med
(39:37):
device and life sciencetransactions.
Three, three hours north of TwinCities, there was nothing
happening here in Fargo.
Although, there were companieslike Eldevron, which, that's a
home run.
That was a nine billion dollartransaction, not too long ago.
We got some state funding tohelp us get established here.
We've had support all the wayfrom the federal level with the
(40:00):
senators and the congressman allthe way down into, the state
senators, the state,representatives, and even the
mayor here in Fargo, who's asurgeon who was very exciting to
see us move in, and you know,we've had the ability to build a
little, a company here withouthaving the same, issues that you
(40:21):
have if you were doing a startupon the West Coast, like in Palo
Alto, or you were down in theTwin Cities, or you were in
Boston, or you were in theResearch Triangle.
I wasn't competing for resourcesthere, or here, that those other
companies were competing for,there was maybe two or three med
device companies in the area.
We all worked together.
(40:41):
Now, 18 months later, all of asudden is there's a dozen med
device companies rolling intoFargo.
And, we're putting a littlecluster together here.
It was just the path of leaseresistance.
And also, the ability not justto start a company, but to help
grow an ecosystem.
(41:01):
Just like the bioscience,program at Stanford in Palo
Alto, they've got anunbelievable machine just
cranking out startups.
My vision is I think that'llhappen here in North Dakota
someday in Fargo.
And, we're working with RichardGlynn at the Bioscience
Association.
we've been able to start thatout.
And we've got great, again,great support from everybody
(41:24):
here in the state.
Pat Kothe (41:25):
You've, we started off talking about, your
experience with differentcompanies and what you've
learned with differentcompanies.
You are building a company fromscratch.
And one of the things that we dowhen we build a company from
scratch, and now you're in adifferent community, is we have
the ability to form our culture,to, to, set the expectations for
(41:47):
who we are as a company, what westand for, and what we do.
How did you approach that whenyou started, the first time CEO,
you've known a few things,you've seen what works, what
hasn't worked.
How did you approach culture?
Rich Walsh (42:01):
Look, I'm not the smartest guy.
walking around here and Isurrounded myself to start off.
I was very lucky again.
My engineers are brilliant.
You the guys that started thiscompany, John and Eddie Ruppel
and some of the others that gotthese ventilators going, I'm
just amazed by the things thatthey come up with and how they
(42:21):
overcome obstacles.
And I realized that if I canhire the smartest, brightest,
most motivated people, to seedthe company, and that's what
we're doing here.
We moved some people here.
I was very lucky.
I hired some great embeddedsoftware engineers out of John
Deere, that have really helpedus get this 510k vent across the
(42:42):
line.
But also a big part of ourmission here is to grow the
ecosystem for life science.
So we've been hiring, last yearwe had 8 interns out of North
Dakota State University, thisyear we have 8 interns, plus 2
Ph.
D.
students, plus I have an internout of University of North
(43:04):
Dakota in Grand Forks, and weinterviewed hundreds.
We had 270 interns interviewwith us.
In January of this year, and wesettled on eight and five of
them were engineers, two weremarketing and one was finance.
(43:26):
And we're unbelievably blessed.
Today's actually the last day.
And they gave their end of, endof internship presentations.
And, we've uncovered someincredible talent we've actually
hired, I think it was three,three of our interns from the
last.
intern program when theygraduated locally here.
We kept them in Fargo, becausethey love it here.
(43:48):
People come to Fargo.
It's a great family environment.
Yeah, the weather's a littleaustere in the wintertime, You
live with it.
You, you know, you kind of copewith it I think it allows my
people to focus more on work forthree or four months that it's
really terrible outside.
They come to work and they, theywork long hours and we have a
good time and, and I leteverybody participate.
(44:10):
And so at the beginning of theinternship, we dialed this
internship program in.
really tight.
The first year was a littleloose.
We didn't get the results wewanted.
Second year, we stepped it upand we had criteria that
everybody had to meet.
We set SMART goals at thebeginning.
Everybody had to hit those SMARTgoals.
We paid more than anybody elsefor interns.
(44:33):
We attracted the best talent.
We give bonuses at the end ofthe program.
And now I'm making offer lettersfor the ones that are seniors.
They're rising seniors, they'regoing into their senior year,
and I'm, I'm writing offerletters to these engineers
saying, look, when you graduate,you've got a home and it's
unbelievable.
The response has beenphenomenal.
(44:54):
Again, we had about 70 peopleinterviewed the first year.
We had over 250 interviewed thesecond year.
and, we were building a greatculture and we've got a great
mix of senior people and nowreally junior people.
And you learn so much from thejunior people.
You learn the whole SaaS side ofthings.
One of my marketing interns gavea presentation today, we were
(45:18):
all blown away by it.
The engineering interns, theywere blown away by it.
Even the finance, our financeguy, just super committed, super
enthusiastic.
We did a great job in pickingthe right people and, they have
really taken us to, anotherlevel.
They've infused a huge amount ofenergy into the organization.
I listen to everybody.
(45:38):
I take all the interns out,one-on-one for lunch to get to
know'em, and I will always dothat.
Take the time, get to knowpeople and what makes'em tick,
their families and such, whatmotivates'em.
And, I look at it, this is kindof like a family or company.
We're very lucky.
Pat Kothe (45:56):
So you said you've, you tuned it in from year one to
year two.
In, in, in other intern programsthat, that I've been involved
with different companies, theinterns have been given very,
menial tasks, so to speak.
And the expectations, aren'tvery high.
it's more, from an internalstandpoint, you're not really
(46:20):
getting anything.
You're giving somebody anopportunity.
You're not getting a whole lotback.
Tell me about what you dodifferent to turn that around.
Rich Walsh (46:31):
We actually, we do get a whole lot back and I will
tell you because we decided thatwe were not going to have, I
decided.
A year ago that, our next batchof interns, they were going to
learn a lot and that we weregoing to learn a lot from them,
and it's cross functional.
We've got engineering, we've gotquality, we've got marketing,
(46:53):
everybody working together.
They're learning a lot of newtechnologies and new techniques
at the university that some ofmy senior engineers just don't
know, and vice versa.
These engineering interns areleaving here with all sorts of
different types of programs thatthey had a chance to use that we
spent hundreds of thousands ofdollars on that they don't have
(47:16):
at the university.
So it's a very healthy exchangeof information and, um, just
life experience, if you will.
What's.
Also helped us, we've got somegreat PhD candidates that are
working and they're right inthere with the undergraduate
interns.
So you watch them and they wereall learning, they're all
(47:38):
learning together.
And then, we hired a lot of theengineering interns to do our
FDA testing or help us with ourFDA testing or a V&V.
So they.
they come in here with a, arudimentary knowledge of
engineering and we put it towork immediately and all of a
(47:58):
sudden it's real world and allof a sudden everything's
clicking.
Everything's oh, that's why wedid that.
Oh, that's why we did that.
I think that we wouldn't bewhere we are without our, we
wouldn't be ready to submit for510K without our interns.
And we wouldn't be ready tolaunch commercially without our
510k interns or our engineeringand marketing interns.
(48:23):
I just think that it'stransformational if you set it
up right and you treat them asemployees, not as interns.
And you treat them as a, and youlet them, you give them a task
and let them run.
Now, what you do have to do isyou got to watch them closely
because sometimes they're, theydon't communicate as well and
they dig themselves into a holeand then they just sit in the
(48:45):
hole and wait for something tohappen.
Hope, hopefully something goodwill happen, so you got to watch
them very closely.
You got to teach them tocommunicate.
this new generation, nextgeneration communicates very
differently than we do.
I would just go knock on thedoor.
nobody will knock on my door,they'll slack me, they'll text
me, they'll email me, and when Isee an email that's three or
(49:05):
four hours old that I haven'tresponded to, I feel terrible
because I, I think, I, in mymind I'm thinking they've been
sitting there for three hoursstaring at that, waiting for, I,
that's why I tell them, justcome knock on my door, come walk
in, grab me at lunchtime, let'stalk about it, don't email me,
but be proactive.
Time is money, and we got a lotof things that we want to do
(49:28):
here.
Move forward.
Always keep moving forward.
And, nobody will ever say, Don'tbother me.
Everybody's, just give me aminute.
Or, let's get together at lunch.
Let's get together at, after theday is over.
They have to communicate, andwe've taught them how to do
that.
They're not afraid.
(49:50):
They are used to seeing the CEO,having lunch with the CEO,
having dinner with the CEO,going out, going to a base, we
take them to the baseball gameslocally here, and we do a lot of
fun things with them.
So they mature socially.
Pat Kothe (50:03):
So to kind of, kind of come back full circle.
on this, when you started yourcareer and you started your
career and you had, you werelooking to Leon Hirsch and you
were looking at expectations,high expectations that were set
for you, a massive, massiveamount of training that, that
you did and helping people to besuccessful.
(50:27):
In essence, that's what, that'sthe culture that you're
building.
So it goes all the way back toyour first job, your US surgical
job, and you're, and now you aredoing what you were taught.
Rich Walsh (50:40):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know what?
Because we were very successful.
So why reinvent the wheel?
Pat Kothe (50:46):
There
Rich Walsh (50:46):
You know, It's not easy to do what we do.
having a really high standard,24 7, and a huge amount of
energy, 24 7, and a positiveattitude, even when times really
are terrible, having a positiveattitude, that, knowing that
you're going to be successful,that's not always easy, but if
(51:08):
you do that, you can get intothe red zone and you can, score
a touchdown.
Pat Kothe (51:13):
thanks so much for a really fun conversation.
a lot of great points coming outof here.
I want to ask you one finalthing, and that is, We're
talking about culture here, andYou know, you're the leader of
the group and you're setting it.
Your senior managers are settingit as well.
But then you've got theseinterns.
(51:34):
You've got young people, and noteveryone's a leader to be able
to set things.
Some of us are followers atdifferent points.
So how can the followers be goodstewards of the culture, what
can they do to help reinforceand build, build the culture
that, that they're, that theywant to see?
Rich Walsh (51:55):
I think everybody can lead in one way or another.
If somebody is quiet, you, youthink, okay, they're not a
leader, they're a follower, butit might just be communication,
right?
It may, they may be a leader.
There's all sorts of differentexamples.
Most recently I watched themovie Oppenheimer, right?
Went to see Oppenheimer.
You didn't think he was aleader, but he was.
(52:16):
know, this guy was a real deepthinker.
He was, a genius.
But he led us across the finishline.
He did something that wasimpossible in a record amount of
time.
And, I think that all pods havea leader.
And, if you put five followersin a room together, somebody's
gonna become a leader.
(52:36):
Because they're not all going tojust like walk in circles and
not get something done.
Somebody's going to pop up.
So, I think everybody's gottheir time to shine.
And everybody, everybody hassome leadership ability in them.
And it's all about opportunity.
If you give them the opportunityto lead in one way or the other.
It's many different examples ofhow you can be a leader, right?
(52:59):
And so I like to think ofeverybody can be a leader in one
way or another, and everybodycan shine in one way or the
other.
You just have to give them theability to do that and the
opportunity to do that.
Pat Kothe (53:12):
As I mentioned at the beginning, transitions are
fascinating to me.
Rich personally and the Corventteam are going through them.
If you listen carefully, youheard how we have people and
experiences that prepare us forchange.
We just need to learn from them.
(53:32):
A few of my take-aways.
First, the foundation on whichRich built his career.
The U.S.'s.
U.
S.
Army and U.
S.
Surgical.
His career has been built on afoundation of discipline, high
expectations, andaccountability.
But also the interesting thingwas the leaders who are open and
(53:56):
helpful has also really informedhis decision to be a leader and
how he leads a company.
Second, the internship program.
And he mentioned how they beganit.
and changed it and evolved it toget exactly what they want out
of it.
And it comes back to they havehigh expectations for this
(54:18):
program and for the candidates.
They've got quality candidatesthat are coming in and they're
developing a reputation to bringadditional quality candidates
in.
What it allows them to do isreally get a first look at these
candidates that are coming inand provide offers to people who
really are going to be highperformers in there.
What that leads to is he's in,he's in an area where people
(54:41):
want to stay.
So it's going to provide a, youknow, a great workforce, but a
stable workforce.
People who want to be in thatecosystem.
The final thing is brutalfeedback.
And we talked about howimportant the feedback that Rich
received early in his careerreally helped him to be a more
(55:03):
effective communicator, a moreeffective leader, uh, and a more
effective team member, uh, inthe companies that he's in.
So, even though we may notsometimes like to hear things.
It's things that we need to hearthat make us better people.
So ask for it, ask for thatbrutal feedback, listen and
(55:23):
reflect carefully on it.
Do not be defensive.
What you're putting out theremay be something that is a blind
spot for you.
So make sure that you're, you'reunderstanding how you're being
viewed and then make thenecessary changes to make
yourself a more effectiveleader.
Thank you for listening.
Make sure you get episodesdownloaded to your device
(55:46):
automatically by liking orsubscribing to the Mastering
Medical Device podcast whereveryou get your podcasts.
Also, please spread the word andtell a friend or two to listen
to the Mastering Medical Devicepodcast as interviews like
today's can help you become amore effective medical device
leader.
Work hard.
Be kind.
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