S5E11 Roger Labrecque | Accelerating R&D Work, 21 CFR, & How To Collaborate Effectively

Aaron Moncur interviews Roger LaBrecque about his career journey in medical device innovation, focusing on accelerating R&D processes while ensuring compliance. They discuss strategies for effective collaboration, problem-solving, and networking.

Main Topics:

• Strategies for accelerating R&D while following regulations 
• Techniques for collaboration and problem-solving across functions 
• Approaches to innovation and patenting, and advice for networking as an engineer.

About the guest: Roger Labrecque, a distinguished figure in the field of medical device innovation. Roger boasts an impressive career marked by his deep passion for addressing unmet needs in healthcare. With a rich portfolio of over 20 patents, he is recognized for his innovative thinking and expertise in product development, from ideation through commercialization. Roger's leadership extends beyond technical skills, as he is known for fostering robust collaboration across cross-functional teams and incorporating critical insights through the Voice of the Customer process.

Links:

Roger Labrecque - LinkedIn

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Transcript

Aaron Moncur: 0:03

Earn a two and a half percent commission that's hundreds or even 1000s of dollars. When you take two minutes to make an introduction to pipeline through our ambassador program, all of the free content pipeline brings to the engineering community. The being an engineer podcast, the wave our free online platform for engineers, and our CAD club volunteer organization for aspiring young engineers is possible because pipeline exists by making just one introduction you can support pipelines, core business, and in so doing support the aforementioned initiatives we provide that enrich the entire engineering community, start making an impact today at Team pipeline.us. Forward slash ambassador, that's Team pipeline.us, forward slash ambassador.

Roger Labrecque: 0:50

Like anything, you don't have to be the expert. But it's really good if you know enough to talk to the expert and get that answer.

Aaron Moncur: 0:57

Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of The being an engineer Podcast. Today we're speaking with Roger Labrecque. And he is a distinguished field in the field of medical device innovation. Roger boasts an impressive career marked by his deep passion for addressing unmet needs in healthcare. With a rich portfolio of over 20 patents. He's recognized for his innovative thinking and expertise in product development from ideation through commercialization. Rogers leadership extends beyond technical skills as he is known for fostering robust collaboration across cross functional teams and incorporating critical insights through the voice of the customer process. Roger, thank you so much for being with us on the podcast today.

Roger Labrecque: 1:52

Thanks for having me. Aaron,

Aaron Moncur: 1:54

Well, tell me what made you decide to become an engineer?

Roger Labrecque: 1:57

Well, I guess it really started with my family. Growing up when I was little kid, my, my grandfather, our motorized house, and you know, kind of shows how old I am yet to a treadmill that didn't have motors back then. And he rigged his up with a motor. And I remember kind of looking at it and seeing, hey, what's going on here, you're, you're taking away all the exercise, I didn't know the first thing about it. But but he really, he rigged these things up and go on in his basement, he's to cut rocks, and he had all these rock cutting tools he had go and find them and cut them. And he had everything, you know, just done how you wouldn't think, very creative ways of handling things. So you know, I really kind of got, you know, say, I like solving problems. And then my dad was an engineer, he was in the Air Force, he designed some reinforcement system for the uniform, so they could, you know, fly in with the helicopter and attach it and fly away with them. So I was really, really interested in that sort of thing. Then my sister went to school for plastics engineering, and she kind of got me into what she's talking about all time, we're talking about biodegradable polymers and things like that. So that got me interested in the set. Alright, I think this might be for me.

Aaron Moncur: 3:12

That and Legos are probably the two most common answers I hear you know, something about family influence, or I love building Legos when I was growing up, or

Roger Labrecque: 3:20

I do like Legos. both.

Aaron Moncur: 3:22

Oh, here's a question. When you build Legos, did you often get the kit? Right? There's whatever kit it is for a specific build, and just stick to the kits for the most part? Or would you just have a giant bin full of random Legos from different kids and you would more often than not take from the bin and build your own contraptions?

Roger Labrecque: 3:44

I think it's a little bit of both, you know, a lot of the, you know, when I was kid, we didn't have a lot of the kits. We just had, you know, a pile of Legos by now, as I helped my my son build his Legos and, you know, play with him with him. You know, I'm really I kind of look at the pictures and just kind of build in, it doesn't work. So you go back and read the instructions. So I don't need

Aaron Moncur: 4:07

I'm not sure if that's a male thing or an engineer thing. I don't need the instructions.

Roger Labrecque: 4:12

That's how it goes. All right. I don't think it alone in that.

Aaron Moncur: 4:15

Nope, nope. All right. Well, you've been in medical devices for quite a while. Now. How did you first get into medical devices? What was your journey like getting into that field? Now,

Roger Labrecque: 4:26

okay. It's kind of a long story, but I'll try to keep it as brief as I can start it off in grad school. I did my Master's in plastics engineering, and I got focus on biodegradable polymers. So naturally, I was looking at that and that led me to drug delivery. So I started off at a small company called Euro Med, working on female urinary incontinence devices and I was compounding different materials and working with different devices and I really liked that I felt like I was really doing something and then when I When I got out and graduated, I got my job at atrium. And, you know, they were looking to start up a drug delivery group, but not quite yet they had, they wanted to do it and about two years from when I started. So they put me in working with PTFE, expanded PTFE. So basically Teflon material. So I went, and I started working with that. And, you know, to process development, they just threw me on the floor, and they said, Shadowfall, my first two weeks there, learn the process. And me coming out of plastics engineering, I thought, Alright, I know extrusion, but you know, you know, I don't know, PTFE extrusion, it's a completely different animal. It doesn't process really like any other plastic material that you would expect. So I had a lot to learn there. So I learned a lot about the different processing, and I was working on vascular grafts at the time. So there was a lot too, you know, you think that they're just dumb tubes, right. That's how they're really described. But there's a lot to do with the different morphologies, the microstructures, the, the strength of the radio, the longitudinal, the suitor retention, there's really a lot of things that go into the development and the healing of them. And, you know, there's so many things. So I really enjoyed that. And after about two years, we started the drug delivery group, and I was the first one in there, and started working for about six months, then we hired a PhD scientist. My friend, actually, my friend, Jeff moody, he ended up being, you know, one of my closest friends. And what I realized that this guy is super smart guy and learned a real lot from him. And here I am with the experience with the PTFE. And this guy comes in and like, Alright, I know what I'm doing. And but then, you know, I was kind of, I was a kid, I was young. And I realized, wow, this guy really knows what he's talking about. I can learn a lot from him. And that was really an eye opening experience for me. And, you know, yeah, you don't have to be too smart to realize you can learn something from a PhD. But I did that. And, you know, he taught me things like cell culture, preclinical testing, aseptic technique, biocompatibility, tox, testing, a lot of stuff that I really didn't have a lot of experience in. So I think that was a really great experience. For me learning starting that drug delivery group from the from the start up hiring him, we hired some more people and we really worked on it together, then now we have this drug delivery group, and how are we going to test these things. So we had to start up the analytical group. Same sort of situation where we already had a DSC and FDA or a few, you know, basic methods. But then I had to go by HPLC, viscometer, rheometer, we found some vendors do some outside testing, such as NMR, SEM, atomic absorption, things like that. Then it was time to hire our next PhD. And we hired this guy named Keith Bush, a really, really smart guy again, I learned a tremendous amount from this guy. And years later, I went on to report report, Tim is great manager. All along i Same type of story. You know, he taught me a lot about the analytical side of things. And, you know, he had a really good knack for managing just, I think, for me, I really learned from him, it starts with being a good person, right? Treat people, right, and they're going to work hard for you. So it's really not rocket science. So that was great. Now, all this biodegradable stuff. And these two, two really groups that I was involved in, that led into a team where we felt the drug eluting coronary stent. So at that, it was I was responsible for the formulation of these devices of the coatings, it was an oil based coating at the time, and the applicators to you know, get uniform and amounts of coating and drug on these the stents. And then we went into went all the way up to human clinicals. But one of the fun things on the way there, you know, for the preclinical, we do a lot of the animal testing in the pigs and you know, I went all over doing that sort of thing. And funny story up and we're up in Canada, and one of the one of the guys that does the implants, you know, he blew out his knee plan Aki. So he couldn't stand so he's still there, his legs in a brace, but he can't get to the implant. So there's one guy trying to do it all by himself. So I'm like, Hey, let's let me help you. This is crazy. One person try and do all this. So they said, well, we don't really normally have sponsors do this. And like, that's all right. Don't worry, it's not my first time up here. So I actually got to scrub into the case and I got to you know, put the push the catheters up the big and, you know, deploy the stents in their heart. And this is this is great. I had blood on my hands. It was it was a pretty amazing experience. To really be the in there and as an engineer, you don't always get an opportunity to do something like that. So that was really a great, great experience we had A really small but hardworking team and there was lots of great experiences from there. From there, I went to, you know, thoracic drainage catheter project, then it went on to a buyer surgery group working on hernia mesh. I think the hernia mesh actually was great for me because it was completely new. I was working on vascular endovascular now I got BioSurgery. There's different tools or different applications, it's, you know, a laparoscopic type of surgery. So I had to learn a lot of different things. We use a lot of chemistry on our we're making barrier layers in the mesh. So I got really deep into the chemistry on this, in how it's going to go to the design, you know, some reactive chemistry in there. So it's actually really, really interesting. So that was, that was a great opportunity. And then things really changed. That's when we got hit with remediation. And everyone says, oh, remediation, this is terrible, especially for a guy like me that's into, you know, being creative and innovation. But it's actually been a great stop in my career. It was about six to seven years, and you're probably thinking six to seven years for mediation that is absolutely crazy.

Aaron Moncur: 11:09

For those of the, for those people who don't know what remediation is, can you explain that, please?

Roger Labrecque: 11:15

Yeah, so that's basically, when you have a quality management system, right. And the FDA comes in get an inspection and inspection, you get maybe a 43 Consent Decree or something like that, where you get a finding by the FDA and said, you know, what, your quality systems not up to par, we need to you need to do something, you need to remediate this, you need to fix it, you know, for us had happened after an acquisition were acquired by a larger company, then all of a sudden, now the microscope is on us now, because we're part of a bigger corporation before we were the little guys. So there was no microscope on like that on us, and everything was great. As I'm learning that's, that's not all that uncommon. So with this remediation, my first project in there was had to fix all the design history files. And I said, Wow, this is we've got 16, commercial, commercially released product. So that's 16 products I've got to do. So we built a team. And anyone that's familiar with remediation, reporting structure kind of goes out the window. So you, you lead a team, and the people that are on the team are on the team. And yeah, you still have your manager off in another section of the building. But people are all kind of jumbled based on the needs of the business. And it's really all hands on deck. And there's a lot of you know, we brought in consultants, we brought in a lot of Co Op students, interns, things like that, whatever we could leverage. So I did the, the design history files. And for this, it was actually a pretty amazing experience, because it was like doing product development and fast forward. So like I said, we did 16 different products, and we did them over the course of maybe two years. So now that's everything from you know, setting up a structure to for this design history file on electronic structure. So it'd be easily searchable in audits, you know, with the revision histories, how are we going to do this. So I think it was huge for me in terms of collaboration, we got really close with the intimate friends and document control, I think, you know, because we work so closely, we couldn't have done without them. Then we are really collaborating with the design verification validation teams, process validation team's quality, regulatory, the internal auditors, manufacturing, all the people that are going to be responsible for these documents to actually get them we had to work with those people in we're a lot more than just librarians in this, we're really bringing this all together and working to figure out what the requirements are going to be writing the procedures. I actually printed out a copy of the 21 CFR 820, the regulations and I would have it by my bed at night and not read it in the highlight. And it's kind of crazy, because, you know, what I didn't realize is, you these regulations, they're not procedures, they're they're guidelines, and you write your procedures based on these guidelines. So as long as you're compliant, you can write down whatever you want. So we're able actually to go and write these procedures and find something that'll work for us. So there's a lot of collaboration in this because there's a lot of stakeholders. And so I got to work really closely with a lot of these different cross functional teams here. So it was a great experience for me even though you think good design history file. That's that's pretty dry work. And you know what, yeah, it is. But when you kind of you put the spin on and make the best out of it. I think our team was about 12 people. So there's a lot of work that we had to do. And, you know, really to learn that's where I really first started to learn how to be a leader, a manager type of thing there. I had managed people. But you know, that was my first experience with a group of oversight 10 people. And I thought it was great because you, when you're starting off with something that is really you have to put a spin on it right? You have to say, hey, we're going to learn this is going to be great. Look what we're getting out of this. And you're almost you start believing it. And then all of a sudden, everyone believes, I think, you know what, that's true, we are learning something. So it was it was a great experience there. Then, I think they might have liked what I did on that project. So they gave me drawing review next, and I think drawing review what's this, and my instruction that we'll all figure out, figure it out, make our drugs compliant, like, all right, this can't be anything. Well, this, this one turned into a lot more than I ever would have expected. And more than I think a lot of people would expect, because we had over 1000 drawings. And this this team grew. I mean, we had at sometimes up to 50 people touching this project on various aspects of this team. So the first thing I did is, you know, I said, this is this is really big, I'm gonna go down and interview all the stakeholders went around for, you know, obviously sqp, because you were the drawing, you know, you're you're going to be ordering the parts. Quality, you know, when you're looking at from a quality point of view, you've got a, you look, your risk analysis and what what properties based on our Diefenbaker de familia, whatever you're using, how do you have to line it up and make sure you have appropriate testing for the quality on this? So I think that was really, really important for me to look at that. And then there's regulatory say, are, what's your particular specification going to be in this? What is your material controls, you know, for changing materials, from the vendor point of view. There's just so many different things that had touched the CAD group, you know, this such a large project, I needed to, you know, essentially a right hand, man. So I reached out my friend Mark, who's the head of the CAD group and said, Hey, let's do this together. So I brought him in toys, it's, it's, it kind of goes back to the whole thing everyone's talking about Rs keep a strong network, right? You know, this guy, I tapped on his shoulder, because I knew he was a really good guy. And he's smart, and He's hardworking. And I knew he could bring value to the and because I knew him, you know, interviewing something like, someone with a cat background for a project like this, like, Yeah, let's drawings, but you wouldn't necessarily look to, to pull someone like that. And so I think, as I'm, as I'm thinking about this, you know, that was really, because I had experience with them. That's, that's really the heart of networking. So I think, maybe I'll come back to that in a little bit. But tying all these people together, and really working with all these cross functional teams, I think, when it's a team of, you know, upwards of 50 people that I'm responsible for this project for, it really teaches how to, to lead and saying that, you know, what, you can't do this alone, no one can do this alone. And you have to say, Alright, bring people along, identify people that can, you know, work on these subgroups. And, you know, give them the the outline of what they need to do, and really keep them motivated and give people that are working on their part of the projects, and just, you know, let them know that you're there for support. But, you know, given the chance to, to fail, but also the opportunity to succeed. And I think that's what I really learned from this such a large project like this.

Aaron Moncur: 18:38

Let me let me ask you a question there. I'm so sorry to interrupt. This is something I've been thinking about lately is is how, how long have a lease do you give engineers to fail? To what degree do we allow engineers to fail before saying, pretty sure this is not going to work? And we can't make this a science project? We're in a business, we need to be profitable. We can't just spend unlimited amounts of time on this, do you have a philosophy that you follow for guiding the answer to that question?

Roger Labrecque: 19:12

So, uh, yeah, I think you're very, very right, with this whole, you know, science experiment, because it'll always, you know, not always, but for a lot of times, you're going to default there. You know, it's, you know, they always say, you know, give them enough rope to hang himself with, but don't actually let them do it. Right. So there's gonna be a safety net. And, you know, I think the key to anything like this is communication, right? So if if you give them the tools, and it's not to the level of micromanaging, you know, communicate, let's talk about it. Hey, I haven't done this before. Let me run it by you. This one a second. Alright. This makes a lot of sense. Let's do it. Right. People are going to make mistakes because honestly, if people don't make mistakes, they don't grow. So you can't just prescribe everything for people to do all the time or they're never going to get any better? Yeah, you hope they make the small mistakes you hope they learn from other people's mistakes. Give them opportunities, you know, when, when other people make mistakes. And I'm not saying we pointed out, but we discuss it right. And then one one of the person on my team is make a mistake. Let's how could we have done this? I mean, this is why people do post mortems. Right? When when things go great, it's great when they didn't go great. Alright, let's talk about what can we can do better next time? I think it's pretty basic. So that's really my philosophy on it, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Aaron Moncur: 20:31

absolutely. I've been working on a basically a flowchart of decision chart for when you should ask for help early help or guidance, however you want to see it, versus when you should really plow through it on your own and strengthen that muscle of figuring stuff out by yourself. And I think there are a couple of important questions. One is that is this thing we're trying to do really, truly important for our company? Or it's just a small part of something that is important to the company. But But this item directly is really not that relevant. If it's if it's not directly very relevant to the company, I would consider asking for help early. Another question that I would ask is, is the answer to this already known does DIS and readily available? Right? Because probably someone in the world knows the answer to most things that we're doing. But is the answer known and readily available to me? And if the answer is yes, then I would also consider asking for for help early rather than spinning my own wheels on it. And then the third one is, is this something? Is this a one time problem? Or is this a recurring problem? And if it's just a one time problem, then I might ask for help early. But if it's a recurring problem, something I'm gonna have to figure out this type of problem many times in the future, that I probably want to spend the time myself to learn that answer so that I build that muscle and can do it more effectively, in the future. Anyway, those are a few questions that I've been kind of tried to put together this this flowchart to use with my own team of how to know when to ask for help early versus spending the time on your own to figure things out. Yeah,

Roger Labrecque: 22:22

so I think from my point of view, you know, I'm trying, I'm trying my best to talk slow, I talk really fast. And you probably know that from last time we talked, but I'm clouds. I'm concentrating on trying to talk a little bit slow today. So I don't, I don't like to waste time, right? So for me, I would just ask, I mean, it doesn't hurt and, and for people on my team, what I'll do is I'll help them with strategy. I won't, I won't necessarily give them the answer. Say, this is how I would approach the strategy. Let me see what you find out, right in, you kind of coach them and get them to learn, and you talk to talk about it on the way. So that's been my approach. And I think people, they liked to have the support there. But they also liked the feeling of accomplishment. So it's kind of a mix there. So in honestly, it depends on the person you're working with, right? You know, when I first started managing, what I would tell people is, I bring them in my office and say, I'm gonna tell you right now, I am going to manage Iraq. And they look may say, What are you talking about your guy mad at me, I said, Let me clear this up, I'm going to start by one or two things, I'm going to manage you exactly as I would like to be managed. Or I'm going to try to get you a profile and someone I've mentioned managed before, and I'm going to manage you like I think that person would want to be man, that's my only two points of reference. As we go, I know that neither one of those are going to be right for you. I know that we're going to have to adjust to what you respond to. And you know what works well for you what works well for me in this in this relationship. And I'm going to adjust from there. So every person is going to be different. So you can't really have a one. One size fits all on this. So I think it's the same when you're when you're teaching someone everyone learns different. Yeah, you know, I've managed a lot of people work with a lot of people with their learning styles are absolutely crazy different. And you know what, like anything else, you leverage their strengths, and you put them in a position to succeed.

Aaron Moncur: 24:29

You mentioned that people want to feel like they've accomplished something, which sure that's that makes sense. Right? I think no one would disagree with that. I heard a really interesting story. A little while ago, I think it was in a book I read about that. The importance of that feeling of accomplishment and it was in the context of there's a specific name for it. I don't think I can remember it off the top of my head but it's it's cake mix, you know the cake mix. that you buy at the grocery store, you come home and you add a few things, put it in the oven, and voila, you've got a cake. Well, apparently, in the early days before cake mix with us was a thing, when you had to put all the ingredients together yourself right from scratch. When cake bakes first came out, all you had to do was add water. And that was it is very, very simple. And it didn't sell that well. And what they learned was that the the folks at this at the time, predominantly housewives who were making these cakes, what they learned was that it was too easy for them. And they didn't feel like they had accomplished anything. And so what the executives did at these, the companies that were making cake mix, is they just added one more ingredient that you had to add yourself to the mix. And now it's water and eggs. And that's it. That was the only change they made. But it was apparently enough to where these these housewives now felt like they were accomplishing something, there was enough for them to do that they felt accomplished and sales took off. And you know, we cake makes us just everywhere now. But there's probably a good analogy there. Right. But we need to allow enough for the especially the younger engineers to learn and feel accomplished. But but not so much that it takes so long like baking a cake completely from scratch. Right?

Roger Labrecque: 26:26

Yeah. So it's you're telling the story. And here I am giggling, right? Because, you know, when I make pancakes, I don't buy the box, I make it from scratch every time. And like, I want to, I want to make them how I want to make them and I want to put my chocolate chips in and I want my vanilla, I want to I want to put the things that I want to put in. Right. Yeah. So yeah, I completely relate to that. So that's, that's great.

Aaron Moncur: 26:47

That's so funny. Well, let me take a very short break here and share with everyone listening that pipeline design and engineering My company is where you can go to get help with developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines, and custom fixtures supplemented or complemented with product design and r&d. You can visit us at Team pipeline.us to learn more. And we would love to hear from you. So now back to our conversation with Roger. So Roger, you have let's talk about patents, you have over 20 patents to your name, which is quite a lot. What is your? I don't know if you'd call it a strategy really. But how did you get your name on so many patents? And do you have any? I don't know pro tips that you can share with the listeners about how to go about having your name on a patent?

Roger Labrecque: 27:44

Yeah, I think for me, it's it's understanding a problem, right? And you want to understand the what the problem actually is that you're trying to solve, to solve in? And that goes back to communication collaboration. Right, what what I will, you know, typically do I'll find the unmet needs, and I'll talk to people on the team and say, Alright, hey, the the doctors are having a problem with this, what can we do to solve this, you know, put it up on the whiteboard, and, you know, get people excited about it, we'll be drawing and, you know, really try to spark the creativity in these people. Sometimes you look he can borrow from another procedure, maybe another industry. You know, with vascular endovascular, you know, you're taking the tube, right, you're putting something small in a small hole, you're sneaking it down the body. So whether you're doing a you know, putting in a stent, or if it's like a, an endoscope, or, or anything like that, it's the principles are really this very similar. So you can take things you can scale them down, make them go left instead of right. So there's, there's all different types of things you can do. Maybe look at what the competitors are in that space, understand what they're doing, look at their IP. I think as you you read, and you learn, it's really mean things just kind of come like, Oh, I've got a better solution for that. I guess one. One example of this is when I was leading the graph team, after I did all the remediation. Very last minute, I was invited to a, there was an endovascular surgeon. That was he was giving a talk a you know, in the the main conference room. So at the last minute, my boss says, Hey, come on, do you want to join us? So let's go. And so he's given this talk and telling us about this endovascular thing that I really hadn't seen a lot about at the time. And, you know, the approach that these other people are using to do it and like, that doesn't make any sense. Why would you do it that way? And I got a much better way to do that. And so I grabbed my friend Dave, who was great at FDA said, Hey, I got an idea for a stent design. What do you think about this and I ran it by him. And, you know, went home, I cut things out on paper. sent design and I took a paper towel rolls and you know, kind of made prototypes with that, you know, maybe use some clay, he went did some FBA, in this one a Friday afternoon and by by Monday morning, we had a working model. And then we realized amazing, yeah, we ran up by our product management team. And we said, hey, well, what do you think about this, and I think marketing, product management and in the engineering innovation, I mean, some people try to split those up, I don't know how you do. I mean, they were my biggest resource. It's funny, even like, to this day, I've since decided to leave my company. But when I'm looking at, you know, who were the people that I really connected with, and that I still talk to very frequently, like, most of my good friends are from product management, like, that doesn't make any sense for an engineer. But, you know, that's those people I worked with, they, they put me in front of the doctors, and they gave me these opportunities. And so when you're working with people, and you're able to work together with them, I think that's, that's really, really good. Another thing for the patents, you know, you're really got to take off the handcuffs. And, you know, everything's in play. One of the really good examples is, I was meeting with a doctor a years ago, and we're talking about a device he had, and one of the things he really stuck out to me. And he said, blood does not see angles, right? So people develop these develop these designs, right? And they're thinking, hey, it has to look like your anatomy, look, then he says, No, it doesn't, what blood doesn't know what angle it doesn't know anything but shear, right? Build your your device to maximize what the blood sees, not what you think it needs to see. Right. And so now all of a sudden, you look at a problem completely different. So when you really stepped back, and you take these handcuffs off, and you don't look at it, like, everyone expects you to look at it, you know, things just pop out. And it really makes it, you know, really a lot easier. And then we you kind of I keep on going into the the collaboration, I'm really huge on that. So you know, you build a relationship. So in terms of the IP, you know, working with a patent attorneys, I've worked so much with patent attorneys, and I've gotten to learn a lot about these things, you know, the different claim language, how to look for prior art, and how to really understand what you're trying to patent there. And, you know, for instance, I just filed two patents on stent design sets. That's a minefield really tough to file bands in that area. There's just so much, but because I collaborated with the attorneys, I kind of knew what to do. And I, I kept them in really close communication, say, hey, this one I'm thinking, what do you think about this, and it was really, really helpful and mean, like anything, you don't have to be the expert. But it's really good if you know enough to talk to the expert and get that answer. And I think that's really, that's really the big it's, it's leveraging all of your all of your tools really, in No, just keep on learning. And you'll always be able to apply that somewhere.

Aaron Moncur: 33:08

That's great. You don't need to be the expert, but you need to know enough to ask the expert. Yeah,

Roger Labrecque: 33:13

absolutely. And that goes with anything. That's not just, that's not just patents. That's voc that's, that's everything.

Aaron Moncur: 33:20

You You mentioned, the ability to look at a problem differently than maybe most people would expect you to look at it. Have you found any strategies over the years to like any tactical approaches to doing that?

Roger Labrecque: 33:38

Well, you know, it's maybe not a tactical one really good observation, I think, that I've come across is when you're an innovation, and I told my team this, when you get on a creative thread, you cannot turn that on and turn that off, right? So I tell them, like, sometimes I'll get up, I'll get a thought at you know, 11 o'clock at night, and I'm in bed and like, you know, watching YouTube videos of surgeries, and all of a sudden, like, alright, I can't sleep enough. So I write this and I just keep on researching the next thing I know the sun's coming up, right? Because you can't, you can't turn this off and on. And so I tell him, I would always tell my team, if you're going, don't think you have to come in at eight o'clock the next morning to shoot me a text, right? Just let me know. And then, you know, come in at two o'clock don't come in just when you have that thing. Just harness it and go for it. Because you know, it's kind of like the opposite of writer's block. Right? Once you have something go and just once it starts pouring this tea ideas, it's it's, you don't want to turn them off. Right? And you just run with it and just, I think it goes to, like really loving what you're doing and jumping in with both feet. And I think it's so funny. I would describe my job that I had when I was leading the innovation team. You know, it was the absolute best job in the world. For me. There are so many people that I would absolutely hate it. Because, you know, the so much uncertainty. And you know, there's some people they like structure. And that's there's nothing wrong with that. Some people operate better than there for me, I, I enjoy the chaos. I like to have a lot of things. I like always having a backup plan. I like no, this is what really lights me up. I agree. Yeah. And this Yeah. And I built my team with like minded people, I mean, obviously different experiences, different strengths, and but I think he just built people with people that have that fire in him. And

Aaron Moncur: 35:29

I think that really resonates with folks who do well, in the r&d space of engineering. You know, there's, there's like sustaining engineering, I think that's the group sustaining engineering or quality control. That's the group that really thrives on order stability. And then you have kind of on the other end of the spectrum, the r&d engineers, or the process development engineers, where you just have a blank sheet of paper, and you need to you need to figure something out, and there's all this chaos and, and a mess. And gradually, over time, it becomes cleaner and more orderly until you have Okay, here. Here's the thing, right? Here's the product or the process, whatever it is,

Roger Labrecque: 36:06

yeah, absolutely. I mean, both very different, but both extremely important. So yeah, and now there's a people have different, like I said earlier, putting people in the, the the, to maximize their skill sets to help them be successful. And there's no shame in you know, doing research has no shame in doing sustaining, it's, you know, what, hey, you're contributing, and whatever your skill set is, you know, if you like doing it, go ahead. Right. Love

Aaron Moncur: 36:30

it. Love it. Well, you're, I guess freelancing right now? Is that the way you describe what you're doing right now? Yeah, so

Roger Labrecque: 36:39

I think I decided in freelancing, yeah, I'm doing a little bit of consulting right now. So what I did is, you know, I, I had a great run that at getting guy, you know, absolutely love it over there. I can't say enough great things about that place. But, you know, one things, you know, I filled the product pipeline, and now my, my responsibilities are changing. And you know, it's going to take, you know, however many years to get these last innovations out. And I didn't want to develop something for the shelf. So I said, No, now's a great time. Let me go see what else is out there for me. And I've been networking, man, it's been great. I've met so many great people. And I think for me, I've really approached it as I'm looking to make really solid connections, almost to the point of sale, hey, I'm looking to make friends, right. And I think this has been great for me, because now, people are really connecting me, I'm getting to learn what I really want to do. And, you know, now the Consulting has started people saying, Hey, we feel like you can really help us here. And it's alright, let's talk. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is always just having these conversations and being willing to help, and just being honest with yourself and be kind of true to who you are. I mean, I remember our first conversation, I thought it was great, we connected to a 30 minute call. And, you know, we really, you know, just got along, and we had a lot to talk about. And, you know, I connected you with my friend well. And so, I think that was great. You know, I think that it could be a good connection for both of you. And then you asked me to be on the podcast. You know, and I felt like, Hey, this is a guy that, you know, I'm going to talk to you probably two or three years from now, you're still gonna know who I am, I'm not gonna I'm gonna know who you are. And I'll feel comfortable reaching out to you. And, you know, just, I had an injury a couple of weeks ago, and you reach out of reach out to me out of nowhere, just say, Hey, how you doing just on a personal level, right. And I thought that was great. And just kind of trying to build connections like that with everybody that I talked to. For me, it's been absolutely amazing. I've met so many great people. And now I've got all these opportunities in front of me and I'm talking. I want to make sure that I'm going to do what is right for me. But I think for me, it's been great,

Aaron Moncur: 39:01

that is just terrific. I'm so happy to hear that things are going as well as they are for you. That's amazing. I think that networking is something that many engineers don't do very well, because generally speaking, we're largely introverts, and maybe you don't enjoy getting out of our own shells and meeting new people. I know that's the case for me. I love being in a quiet room by myself. That's my happy place. But I also have have learned how to talk to other people and get to know people. I'm curious how have you been doing your networking? What What advice can you share for engineers listening about how to do effective networking?

Roger Labrecque: 39:43

Yeah, all right. So for me it's really understand what your what your goals are right? For me, if if you're true to yourself, and you're really authentic, people see that that comes through. And if you say hey, I'm looking to learn from You people love to teach, right? And they love to help people, like people ask me like, Hey, I'm looking for some some advice. Of course, I'm gonna sit there and give it to him. Or I'll, I'll help them out. And I asked the same things. And when you're when you're approaching it that way, if you say, hey, I need help find a work, I need a job. I mean, that's for me, that's not the right way to do it. Because for one thing, it makes me feel really awkward, because I'm kind of the introvert, too, when it when I don't know people, once I get to know people, I'm a lot more open. And the other thing is, once there's money on the line, I'm completely different person, because I'm very, I'm not going to go and talk to people unsolicited. But if my job requires me to do that, all right, well, yeah. Or if I'm looking for a consulting thing, and yeah, that's how I'm gonna get paid. Yeah, I'm gonna have that conversation. And you kind of, yeah, kind of have to just get through it. And, yeah, it's not easy. But when you approach it as, hey, I'm, I'm just making friends. And, you know, people tell me that I'm doing too much networking, and you're over overextending yourself. And because sometimes they'll have two, three have had up to five networking meetings in a day. And so for that, I say, What do you mean, overdo it? Would you be saying the same thing to me? If I went down to the dog park, and I sat on a bench and I talked to five different people each for an hour or a half an hour? No, you'd say, Hey, you just had a great afternoon. Right? And it was playing it was great. So I think when you approach it as just making friends and you know, really learning, the biggest thing for me is always offered something right? And whether it's hey, what can I do to help you with pipeline? I'm like, alright, you know, you're looking for who do i Who do I send in your direction as a networking, know, people that are looking for all right, test fixtures, automation, things like that. Now I know, I come across someone that say, Hey, I really need this done. I, hey, I got a friend Aaron, once you could talk to pipeline, you know, now, now I'm, I'm offering something to you. Or if I make a, you know, a connection, or maybe I say, Hey, this is great podcast called being an engineer, you should listen. Right? Alright, this is great. Now, now I gave them something, you gotta realize that you're gonna scratch a lot more backs than, you know, at the time that you get your back scratch. And that's okay. Because it feels good to help people. So

Aaron Moncur: 42:15

I agree. It does feel very good to help people. It's one of my favorite things to do. And the joy that that sparks is very significant for me. Anyway. The question I had for you was surrounding this idea of community, especially in the context of engineering. So you're doing a lot of networking right now. I imagine LinkedIn is one of the tools that you're using. I know, that's been pretty effective. For me, as far as networking with engineers, do you? Have you found any other communities of engineers that you can approach in use to network and get to know other engineers?

Roger Labrecque: 42:58

Yeah, well, there's obviously there's LinkedIn, I use that quite a bit. But what I do is, you know, if you meet one person, then say, hey, you know, have a great conversation. Do you have any friends, like, the people that I can learn from? And you know, a lot of people are, they're willing to, to introduce you to your friends, if, if you if they know that you're not going to be a hunt, right? If you say, hey, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help you and you know, you will help each other Hey, it's a great connection. For me. It's great for connection a few. I think we both benefited our of our conversation. No, I'm sure that I would be willing to introduce you to people, you'd be willing to interest me people. So I think for me, it's grown there, you know, you meet one person that turns into, you know, two of their friends. And then each one of those, maybe one turns into one one turns into three. And then he kind of grows from there. The other thing is, there's so many networking events that you can go in live, depending on what you want to do. You know, there's there's all sorts of things just no shortage. I'm in the Boston area. There's, I mean, you just there's so much. You just just have to go on. Look there. Yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 44:05

We went to Mt. Nm last year. That's medical device, medical device and manufacturing. I think that's what it stands for. And it was a huge trade show lots more than just m d and M there. That's a great place to meet people only once a year, but there are other trade shows as well throughout the year.

Roger Labrecque: 44:20

Yeah. Overwhelming. I've been to the one man, I'm in the one in New York as well. Saldana, my mind is crazy. How large

Aaron Moncur: 44:27

is gigantic. Yeah, that's it takes three days just to walk the whole floor.

Roger Labrecque: 44:31

Exactly.

Aaron Moncur: 44:33

All right. Well, let's see. I think, maybe just one or two more questions, and we'll wrap things up here. It's crazy. It's been 45 minutes already. Just the time is flying right now. I'm loving this conversation with you. I talk a lot, right? No, no, it I'm surprised how much time has gone past already. What is one thing that you've done to accelerate the speed of engineering either for yourself or for your team? And when I say that, let me clarify that I am not suggesting ways to just make people work faster, because that's, you know, that's not a sustainable thing or work more hours, right, do what you're doing, but do it faster. That's not what I'm talking about. But any any tools or strategies that you found useful and just accelerating that pace? So

Roger Labrecque: 45:19

I have something that really stands out for me for this question. So for for this, when you talk about innovation, you know, you look at early stage feasibility as part of innovation, right. And what we did is we pulled that completely out of the quality system. So you know, everything with the understanding that everything that we do is going to have to be repeated, which is fine. Right? So let's say that, you know, it takes, I don't know, 10 days to run through something with within the quality management system, but it only takes one day to do it outside. Right? All right. So now, in 20 days, you can either run two things through the QMS, where you can run 10 things, and then pick the one that works and run it through, you know, the second 10 days, and then, you know, where are you going to put your money? You know, I mean, you kind of look at it, you know, in terms of, you know, bugs, right? How fast they evolve, you know, because, you know, their lifecycle is so short, right? And then they just keep, you know, how many generations of bugs are there going to be in your in my lifetime? You know, a lot, right? So, you know, when I was younger, the everyone's saying how successful bugs are, and successful species and all that. And like, You're crazy, they only live a day, how can you call that successful? But when you kind of think about it, if if something really happens in the world, and who's going to be more successful, the mosquitoes or the the Galapagos turtles, right? In 1000 years, let's say the sea levels go up by 20 feet, right? All these Galapagus turtles, they're gonna drown? Because there's only been two generations of them. Right. But the mosquitoes, they're probably going to find a way. Right? So same thing with the the research in really going fast. I think that's, that's a huge thing. For me, that's really done for accelerating and you're looking for any opportunity that you can do something like that. That's

Aaron Moncur: 47:07

a terrific one. So let me restate that and make sure I understand what you're saying, I think I do is that within the quality system, especially for very early stage work r&d stuff, you're trying to move fast, you know, you're going to fail a lot, because that is just an inherent part of r&d. So why burden yourself with all the paperwork, and the, I'll just call it the bureaucracy, obviously, we want something to be of a high quality, and it's especially important for medical devices. So these controls are in place for a reason. But why burden yourself with all of that, when you know that you're gonna be failing a lot, right? So step out of that system, and just just go 100%, right, try things, Phil, Phil a lot. And then once you have a process that works, or a product that works, you're happy with the r&d, the output of that r&d phase, then, like you said, you're going to have to redo it, because now you have to work within a quality system. But you've saved so much time avoiding, you know, the myriad paperwork that goes along with failing and trying something new. And now you you only have to go through that paperwork once with a thing that, you know, works. Is that right?

Roger Labrecque: 48:17

Exactly, yeah. And so now, it's just so many more iterations. And you get to try so many more things. And you can just really accelerate your things. And in, this goes for not only the prototypes, but also the test methods. You know, what? I don't, I don't care, I don't need a valid test method for my feasibility. Let me just do a CTRL. Let me make sure it's working, you know, good enough, and let's run. And then once we figure out if it works, all right, let's validate that test method. Let's, you know, put everything in the QMS. And let's do it right. But, you know, we'll have very high confidence, it's gonna, it's gonna pass,

Aaron Moncur: 48:51

that's terrific in your experience, or do many teams work that way? Or have most teams you've worked with in the past? run everything through the quality system, even in the beginning? I

Roger Labrecque: 49:04

mean, it all depends where you're working on, on what you're doing and what you're working on. So I think, you know, you ask 10 people, you get 10 different answers type of thing. For me, that's what I found very effective to work for us, because we did want to innovate really fast. And we wanted to work different product lines, and, you know, a lot of balls in the air type of thing and let's run. Let's go

Aaron Moncur: 49:26

Yeah, yeah, that could easily save you weeks or even months depending on what you're working on. Absolutely. Okay. One more specifically within the context of engineering, what is one thing that frustrates you and also one thing that brings you joy?

Roger Labrecque: 49:42

All right, so the frustrating that's an easy one. That's when when you have people with with these egos, right, or you know, people slowing down things for no good reason. They stand in the way of the progress just for the sake of being heard. And it's not even for patient safety. I think that really He really kind of drives me crazy. And to the point where one of my one of my interview questions that I'll typically ask people to say, what makes you angry? And so it's a very similar question to witches and people get their all to kind of caught off guard. I guess not anymore if listen this podcast, but there's What do you mean when it makes me angry but some people will give the craziest answers I had a guy told me, Well, you and I might not agree I'm like, Well wait a minute, this is not what I'm talking about what really makes you're angry or when you're at work. And you can see the people that are really have this drive and they want to get things done. And they they really want to push his products forward and do it the right way. And there's people getting in the way for no good reason. Now, if it's a quality or regulatory athlete, put the brakes on, you know, protect me from me, I absolutely. But when it's for no good reason, that's really frustrating. And I think a lot of people would agree with that. And then the thing that brings me joy, it's gotta be team success. You know, I love when we set a goal, the entire team can contribute to it. And it's really a team thing, because when everyone's involved, it's just, it's that much better. I've got a really good example. You know, I coach my son's pretty much every team that he's on, I always try to coach, you'll learn a lot from that and get it in that another time. But for you know, he was his basketball season, and this is this little kid that doesn't really get a lot of opportunities, right? And we're in the playoffs last weekend, and we're getting destroyed, we're down 20 points, right? And there's no way we're coming back. And, you know, my son's got the ball, and he passes us does this little guy, and the kid hits the outside shot, the whole gym absolutely exploded, and my son is pumping his fist and all the kids are jumping up and down. And it's like, it's amazing, the strength that teamwork has, and you kind of see it there with, with these little kids. And you know, all the parents, like even the other team, they're all jumping off the benches, and us coaches are all standing up. And I mean, it's when you have everybody from a team contributing, that really, it really elevates the level of the team. And I think everyone loves to see that. And so for me, that's, that's what I really enjoy. You know, that's, that really brings me joy in this. This is the team success. Now,

Aaron Moncur: 52:26

what a special moment. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I

Roger Labrecque: 52:28

mean, you see that sort of thing all the time. But it's just it's one example that happened this weekend. So

Aaron Moncur: 52:33

yeah, that's great. That's great. Okay, well, Roger, what a delight. This has been thank you so much for all the the knowledge and insight that you have shared, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would you feel is very important to share with the listeners that we haven't talked about yet?

Roger Labrecque: 52:52

No, honestly, one of the biggest things that has made the biggest difference in my career as becoming a leader is just take the opportunity. I mentioned coaching, I think, what really changed my outlook on you know, leadership is when you when you coach your kids teams, or your volunteer, now all of a sudden, you're in a leadership position where you can fail me, because you're only responsible to these little eight year old kids is that they have a smile on the face, and they want to play next year. Right. And that's, that's the, if anyone tells you there's any other responsibility, I think, from my opinion, they're wrong. That is the number one and only thing you need to do. And then if you want to win some games, have some fun. Yeah, let's have some fun, let's try to win some games. Right? As you do this, you you learn that people in general have the same tendencies, right? And you can see them really, really far out with a little kid, you know, 810 12 years old, you can see it, now you go to these, you know, eighth ninth graders, and the same tendencies are there and maybe they're, they're a little bit tighter, then you look at the Co Op students, same things, it's, it's even more tight, but then you get to the engineer, Senior Principal. And it's all the same things. But if you know what to look for, you know, in these behaviors, you see them and you can see what people are doing, because you've seen it at an extreme with these little kids. And I never really expected that. But that helped me understand and Hey, what are people doing? And how do I how do I approach a situation? How do I deal with this kid because I can afford to, you know, to mess up right with the kid because it's mean, mean they're not going to get mad at me. It's like, alright, well, hey, we're just trying to win a game, whatever. And my number one thing is keep the kid smile on a kid's face, but you'll learn right? And that's really how I developed a lot of leadership skills. I never would have thought that no one ever told me that and I kind of stumbled across them like oh my god, this is amazing. Sounds great. Great Secret there. Love it have that so any I tell people if you ever have the opportunity to coach your kids team, the answer is always yes. Because you don't need to know the sport you need to know the kids. And you can learn The Sport

Aaron Moncur: 55:01

there's a quote right there out don't need to know the sport need to know the kid love that perfect. That's all it is. As a wisdom bomb right there, Roger, right. Yeah. All right. Well, again, thank you so much for being on the show today. How can people get in touch with you?

Roger Labrecque: 55:17

Yeah, I'd say definitely. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'd say the one thing is, don't just add me. Because honestly, people that just add me, I'm probably not going to accept, I'm going to want to have a conversation. And it might take a little bit to connect. But I think, for me, just adding someone on LinkedIn provides little to no value, right? But if we have a conversation, we connect, and, you know, we learned out how I might be able to help you how you might be able to help me what we look for out for each other in the future. Now it's an actual resource. So definitely, that's that's the best way to get me and, you know, I, like I say, it might take a little bit of time to for us to connect. But you know, I'm always open to networking, and really building building relationships. And you know, these things, nothing bad

Aaron Moncur: 56:07

it. Agreed. Well, Roger, thank you once more. It's comes from been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show and hear a little bit of your story. And I'm sure there's lots that we didn't cover, but what we did cover was tremendously interesting, educational and insightful. So thank you again.

Roger Labrecque: 56:25

All right. Well, thanks a lot for having me, Aaron, and I definitely appreciate you inviting me on today.

Aaron Moncur: 56:32

I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode. To learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing turnkey equipment, custom fixtures and automated machines and with product design, visit us at Team pipeline.us. Thanks for listening