Dr. Earl Bakken Co-Founder & Director Emeritus, Medtronic, Inc. President, Five Mountain Medical Community

Dr. Earl Bakken — inventor of the first transistorized cardiac pacemaker — is Co-Founder and Director Emeritus of Medtronic, Inc., and President of Five Mountain Medical Community.

Dr. Bakken and partner Palmer Hermundslie founded Medtronic in 1949. At the time, Bakken was a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota and Hermundslie worked at a local lumber firm.

When the staff at Northwestern Hospital began asking Bakken to repair its electronic hospital equipment, the two men recognized their opportunity. Bakken left his graduate studies, Palmer quit his job, and together they formed a medical equipment repair company they named Medtronic.

They set up shop in a 600-square-foot garage. While Medtronic's first year as a service company was rough — in one month, it grossed exactly $8 for repair of a centrifuge — it began representing several medical equipment manufacturers in the Upper Midwest, and quickly grew.

Over time, clients began requesting custom modifications to their equipment, and Medtronic began building its own. While the company built nearly 100 different custom devices during the 1950s, only 10 were actually part of the product line. These included two defibrillators, forceps, an animal respirator, a cardiac rate monitor, and a physiologic stimulator.

Dr. Bakken's best known achievment was the development of the wearable, external, battery-powered cardiac pacemaker in 1957. Although doctors had known electricity was effective in stimulating heart activity since 1803, treatment usually required expensive, bulky equipment that kept patients bedridden and was dependent on a hospital's fallible power supply.

Rapid development of the pacemaker continued for the next thirty years. In 1960, Medtronic won exclusive rights to produce and market an internal pacemaker. Meanwhile, the company became a leader in medical equipment supply and support. Today, Medtronic sales and technical support teams serve customers in more than 120 countries.

In 1975, Dr. Bakken founded The Bakken, "A Library and Museum of Electricity in Life." Located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, its holds 11,000 rare books and 2,000 scientific instruments relating to the role of electricity in medicine, science, and society.

Dr. Bakken served as Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Inc. until 1976, but his emphasis on education lives on with his former company. Medtronic, Inc. has founded several Bakken Education Centers in various cities throughout the United States and in England, Germany, India, Japan, and The Netherlands. Thousands of physicians and associated medical professionals take part in learning sessions at the centers every year, and many others attend company-sponsored symposia at other locations.

Dr. Bakken is now president of the Five Mountain Medical Community, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the health and healing resources of the Big Island of Hawaii.

For More Information:
http://www.medtronic.com
http://www.thebakken.org
http://www.fivemtn.org/