S2E03 Engineering Empathy, Identifying Needs, & Developing Strong Work Ethic | Blayne Roeder

Like many great engineers, Blayne Roeder (pronounced like “raider”) grew up on a farm with a strong work ethic and in a culture that valued the ability to maintain (and sometimes build) your own equipment. Those skills helped Blayne quickly advance through a senior level engineering role and into multiple engineering director roles. Having provided guidance to hundreds of junior level engineers throughout his career, Blayne shares with us not only the skills that make great engineers, but skills that make great people. 

blayne_roeder@yahoo.com

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical 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 https://teampipeline.us

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: 0:00

Hey everyone, we're looking to add a new member to our engineering team. Ideally, we're looking for a Senior level Mechanical Design Engineer in the Phoenix area, who has experienced designing custom automated machines, equipment and test fixtures. Also, having working experience with controls and system integration is a plus. If you'd like to apply or suggest someone, please email us at info@testfixturedesign.com. 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. Enjoy the show.

Blaine Rader: 0:48

You know, work hard, you know. You know, don't don't take yourself too seriously. You know, it's not everything's gonna go perfect. You're gonna make mistakes, you know, learn from those move on. I think doing those types of things are really important.

Aaron Moncur: 1:19

Hello, and welcome to the Being An Engineer podcast. Our guest today is Blaine Rader, who has three engineering degrees from Purdue, a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering, a Master's from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Blaine has worked in the medical device space since graduating and held roles as a Senior Engineer, and various engineering director roles. Blaine, welcome to the show.

Blaine Rader: 1:49

Thank you. Thanks for having me here and it's a pleasure to join you.

Aaron Moncur: 1:51

Before I get into the questions, your three degrees, your three academic degrees reminded me of kind of a fun story back when I was in, I think it was in like first grade. But there was this challenge that that the teachers issued to all us kids. And it was a written illustration that represented a phrase and we had to figure out what the phrase was. So let's see, let's see if you can get it here. It was zero, with a bold line underneath the zero. And then below that line in three separate rows. It said PhD, MS, BS, any guesses to what the phrase is?

Blaine Rader: 2:36

No doctors.

Aaron Moncur: 2:39

That's a good guess. It turned out to be three degrees below zero, which I always thought was kind of clever. Yeah. There was only one person in the class who got it. It was this this girl Melissa, I still remember her name. She was just brilliant. And I don't know, first graders, how many first graders actually know what a PhD actually is? Or a BS or MS. I suspect that she had some parents with one or all of those degrees who helped but anyway, fun story. All right. Well, Blaine, what made you decide to become an engineer?

Blaine Rader: 3:14

It's a good question. So I grew up on a farm in Northern Indiana. And throughout that, living on a farm, I had a lot of exposure to machinery, you know, mechanical things. You know, my father, his grandfather, and the whole family had lived and worked on the farm. And that was the history of my family. And so there was a lot of culture there of kind of fixing things, maintaining things, and even little bit of designing your own widgets and gadgets to make things work a little bit better. So I was always exposed to that, from a young age kind of got into doing a lot of those different things on the farm, so that through school, you know, all you said, done well in math and science. And that will make sense to go off and study the bit a bit further and see if I could make a go of it in the engineering field and be one of the first generation of my family not to have worked on a on a farm.

Aaron Moncur: 4:14

I interviewed an engineering manager named Tommy Davis, a while back on the podcast, and he also grew up on the farm and the title for that particular episode of our podcast was Foreign Boys make the Best Engineers. And it's funny because I've heard that so many times now, "why did you decide to become an engineer? Well, I grew up on a farm and was building things and one thing led to another", do you remember any of the widgets that you cobbled together back in your farm days?

Blaine Rader: 4:44

There was you know, a lot of different things. So, you know, being part of those little workshop things I know. You know, if I wanted a, you know, a basketball hoop, I built one. That was an example of one. I had a basketball hoop that I built to you know, there's not the full size basketballs, but those tiny little ones. I made one that worked with that and it had a full breakaway rim and everything.

Aaron Moncur: 5:08

Oh, nice.

Blaine Rader: 5:09

Just something you don't have it, you just, you know, there's metal around, there's some wood around, you know, have some stuff welded together, drill some holes in it, bend it up, and suddenly you have a basketball.

Aaron Moncur: 5:23

Why do you think that is that that foreign boys have this advantage? Because I think it's, it's more than just, you know, something people say there's something to it. I've heard enough people say that same thing now that I think there really is something to it. Is it just the fact that I don't know in the farming culture? There's there's this attitude of build something and make it work? Or is it because you just you have materials kind of organically like lying around that you can put something together? With what what is it about growing up on a farm?

Blaine Rader: 5:58

Yeah, I think it's probably, there's probably probably three things that come together to help push you in that direction. One is, it's just kind of a cultural thing of, you know, you're you're there, you've taken care of the land, you have a lot of equipment that all needs to be maintained, you know, you're not, you know, it's not such a large industry, where you outsource all of that type of work of maintaining things unit doing quite a lot of know, there's older equipment, that's, you know, out of warranty, that sort of things, there's just this need to be able to, to be able to maintain and, and deal with all these mechanical activities, I think for somebody on the growing upside of that you get exposed to it. And then it becomes kind of just a resources thing, because of all this activity going. There's equipment around, there's old equipment, pieces of equipment, stuff that you can, you know, use to start being the building blocks of whatever it is you're working on. And I think the third part of it's probably a bit of a work ethic that comes comes from it. I mean, I was working on the farm doing fairly manual labor, from a reasonably young age. And so that gives you that work ethic that kind of gives you that starting off point for the hard work of getting the education, but then you also really get an up close view of what's your what's your life's going to be like if you're not going to go off and get that education and really want to work for the next 50 years. And that's it's a hard life.

Aaron Moncur: 7:31

That's really good insight. Given that there really is this advantage, in terms of becoming an engineer, a gifted engineer have grown up on a farm in that in that culture. Do you think there are things that others can do who who maybe don't have that natural advantage of grown up on a farm but want to prepare themselves?

Blaine Rader: 7:52

Yeah, that's a great question. And it's one that my wife and I both debated and talked about with our own kids, because obviously, we're in a different situation. Now I don't have a farm, I don't have farm equipment parked out back, my neighbors are very happy for that. But it really comes down to kind of those same principles. And one of the big ones is, you know, just getting access to some of those tools and things and making sure that the resources are there. So the kids have something, you know, to go out and tinker on and play with. And, you know, that's kind of one of my philosophies as a parent is, if it's something that kind of our kids can use to, to kind of drive that inventive nature, develop mechanical skills and building. Fine, we'll go do it, you know, within reason, obviously. So just providing those resources and tools and things so that kids can be inventive and learn mechanical skills.

Aaron Moncur: 8:53

I love them. Well, you started your career as an engineer at a company called Med Institute, which is the name implies is focused on medical devices. It looks like Med Institute as a product development services firm, that's this focus solely on medical devices, is that right?

Blaine Rader: 9:14

Yeah. And yeah, that company has evolved quite a lot, throughout its throughout its life. It originally started as a independent company. And it then became part of the Cook Group of Companies ran by a guy named Neil Fearnot, who's also a brilliant, pretty good engineer. And so they've really been sort of a technical warehouse, if you will, for the Cook Organization for years. And they kind of started off in an innovative role in the company. And in the years, probably the 15 or so years before I joined, they'd kind of evolved from that innovative group to more of a services provider doing more supportive, regulatory device testing. And so when they hired me, they were actually looking to kind of redevelop that core of the company to get back into doing some early device innovation, which was an incredible opportunity for somebody coming up is their first job. And so it was hard hired into a group of a handful of people to kind of re reinvigorate that part of, of the organization. And since then, you know, that organization has actually been split into a couple of different companies. And now, what is Med Institute is a solely focused sort of CRM, if you will, for for medical device consulting. So it's a, it's an evolving role but that's how that's how my story weaves into the story of Med Institute.

Aaron Moncur: 10:49

That's interesting. I didn't realize that Med Institute had been acquired by Cook. So is that how you eventually got your position within Cook was through Med Institute.

Blaine Rader: 11:02

It was it was acquired by Cook before I joined, so it was already a part of Cook.

Aaron Moncur: 11:07

I see. Okay.

Blaine Rader: 11:07

Yeah, and so how that transition worked for me is, I started in a, like I said, in a new group around early device innovation. And so we had that group running for for a

Aaron Moncur: 11:18

So for a change, yeah. couple of years, we decided to make some organizational changes. And ultimately, I ended up running that team from about 2006. forward and ran that group until about 2012, for about six years. And as my time there evolved, I ended up getting a little bit more focused in one area of the business in aortic

Blaine Rader: 11:44

Yeah, it was, it was a good opportunity. So I devices. And so an opportunity came up to move to our corporate headquarters in a role that was overseeing the R&D, product development engineering of that a Nordic group products. And having been in that, that role for six years, I had, at that point, lived in the Lafayette, West Lafayette area for about 19. So kind of an opportunity to do something different than the challenge. took that ultimately brought me here to Bloomington,

Aaron Moncur: 12:27

I'd like to ask you a question about what what might be more applicable to your early days there at Med Institute, something I read on their website, was that they talk about their optimized product development services. And I wonder if you can talk about that a little bit. Was there a particular process that had been developed there? Or maybe you helped develop there, that that led to this, you know, very optimized product development process?

Blaine Rader: 12:58

Yeah. So they, they've always acted in a, in sort of a service capacity to different originally, to the cook group of companies, and now more broadly, across medical device companies. So, you know, they've provided services in, you know, everything from, you know, class two devices, you know, wires, catheters, all the way up to implantable class three devices. And so, I think what they've really developed is a skill set to be able to get down to the issue of a problem as quickly as possible, and be able to develop tools to do that, as well as be able to develop, you know, solutions to those problems as as they're identified, because, you know, that's, you know, you can be as prepared as you can, as you're moving something forward but, you know, surprises always come up as you're running, testing, and doing other doing other design verification activities. And so, you know, they're kind of they're on both in evaluation and also solution finding will become very good at it.

Aaron Moncur: 14:10

Can you can you think of any projects that you were involved with there? Were the process that was followed really helped strengthen the project as a whole?

Blaine Rader: 14:22

Yeah, so that's a good question. I think I may even answer that a little bit more broadly. I think there's, you know, as with anything, I think it's it's preparation, and making sure you have your your early work done and done very robustly. I think somebody once mentioned to me that in the medical device field, anything that you overlook, we'll come back and bite you and bite you in a much bigger way than you ever expected. And so that kind of underscores the philosophy of you know, and it goes crossed, you know, first understanding that you really are working on a real unmet need for the product. Because there's nothing more disappointing that than designing a product that, you know, is effective, but there's really no really placed in the market for it. So making sure you have that unmet clinical need and market need identified up front, that's really the first step of doing your homework, because that's the one that will come back, the latest invites you the worst, because you would have invested millions to get a product to the market, and you know, getting the market wrong, it's not going to, it's not going to have the impact that you expected. And then, you know, going to the next level, you know, once you have that specific need identified, being able to really break that down, as an engineer should to very specific device needs, and ultimately, individual design requirements that this device is going to need to be. So you know, that's, that's really where the skills of the engineers become really, really important. Because, you know, you've got to go through every, you know, every step through this, you know, replicating a surgical procedure, whatever it is, making sure you have all those details in place, and really understanding then everything that could go wrong. So this device, obviously, will perform as anticipated. And, you know, that's really up in front of, you know, really the more inventive part of, of the design process. And it's that point that you can really start to evaluate different solutions, you know, solution may come in at any time, it may be the reason everything starts, right, but until you have that fundamental framework of understanding the specific problem you're going to solve, and then all the individual design requirements that that device is going to need to meet. Now, you really can't even begin to evaluate a potential solution to that, to that problem.

Aaron Moncur: 17:10

In terms of the amount of effort that's focused on really understanding what that problem is that you're trying to solve, and that amount of effort as a percentage of the overall development process. Are there any rules of thumb that you've gleaned over the years? I mean, should you be spending 5% of your time early on defining the problem? Or 10% of your time? Or 25%? of your time? That's, that's a great, that's a great question. You know, I guess speaking in broad brushstrokes, I guess you could say, you know, if you look at a class three implantable medical device, you know, you may spend know, seven, eight, maybe more years getting that product to market, you know, I think you could probably spend a year, maybe more, maybe two years on the front end, really understanding the market, understanding all those design requirements, and then early vetting out of some prototypes on the front end of that. So it could be, as you know, 20% or more, it's probably not going to be 20% of the cost but it's a really valuable investment upfront. What are some of the tools you found to be effective at identifying the problem and ensuring that your engineering team really understands the problem that they're trying to solve? Or that the stakeholders want them to solve?

Blaine Rader: 18:37

Yeah, another great question. I think, probably first and foremost, in the in the medical device field, I think it's actually getting the technical team in front of the ultimate users of the device. I think that's, that's the most important. I think that's important, both from the early problem identification, when you put an engineer in and or with a, with a surgeon working on an open procedure or using devices, whatever it is, you know, that collaboration is going to be very key in identifying, identifying those problems. From a very early on, they're gonna see what this physician is doing, they're gonna start asking questions, or why are they where are you doing this? You know, tell me about that. You know, they're going to work through that whole process of really adding different perspectives to what perhaps that surgeon was only looking at before. So that's going to that's going to be key. And really, that first set of understanding of getting people very familiar with the clinical setting is really important. And then from there, you know, it's, you know, problem solving tools to you know, put together all those design requirements. I think that there's numbers of systems you can use there. But I think first and foremost, from my perspective is getting, getting the technical people out working with directly with with physicians in that.

Aaron Moncur: 20:14

That's great. Thank you for sharing that. Before you began working in industry you talked at at Purdue, I think both as a teaching assistant while you were a student, and then looks like a year or so afterwards as a visiting assistant professor as well. What, what, if anything, did you learn about engineering by teaching it that you hadn't fully appreciated or internalized as a student?

Blaine Rader: 20:43

That's, I think the biggest thing I took away from the teaching side of it is, I would say, from all of the coursework, to teach it, I think you need to understand it at an at a higher level, which I think for some of those early to mid level, engineering courses, a couple of specifically for me, were statics, dynamics, mechanics, early mechanics of materials forces, I ended up teaching all of those at one point at Purdue and it really wasn't until I taught them that I really even developed a higher understanding of those materials. And it just kind of forces it all to click, because, you know, when you're standing in front of 100-150, students all very eager answering, asking a lot of questions, and they're all expecting you to have the answers. So it just puts a new level on it.

Aaron Moncur: 21:42

Yeah. Were there any insights that you gained during that time as a teacher for how to most effectively teach engineers, their trade, or even anything that maybe has helped you train your engineering teams in your future roles as director of engineering?

Blaine Rader: 21:59

Yeah, that's, you know, I think it's just that experience of, you know, helping people, you know, understanding where they're at, and bring them from one point to the next. It's obviously, you know, fairly structured. In an academic environment, you have a set curriculum, you work through that. But I think it's the same principles you're using, you know, you're helping people grow and develop, whether it's in a semester, in the academic setting, or, you know, a couple of years of a career when they're when they're part of your team, and you're helping them grow and develop.

Aaron Moncur: 22:35

If you had a magic wand, and could have changed one or two things about the way that you taught engineering back then, knowing what you do now, is there anything you would have changed?

Blaine Rader: 22:48

Yeah, I think I would have, I would have brought in more practical examples. I think a lot of students struggled with some of the abstract nature of the content. I think a lot of students can make that leap on their own, but I think we could do more, to bring more practicality to it. And again, now, my knowledge of that, that target part of academia is coming quickly dated, my time teaching at the university level is well over 15 years ago, so they may have fixed all these problems by them, but by now, but I think, you know, bringing more practicality to it, I think, would be helpful. And I think even from even from my perspective, if you're looking at getting somebody engaged, heading towards the medical field of the biomedical field, you know, not just bringing the practical nature but also bringing in sort of the impact piece sooner. Because nothing you know, nothing really gets people motivated. You start to bring forward a problem where you can really affect a patient or a person you really have an impact on somebody's life with your work.

Aaron Moncur: 24:03

Yeah, it's it altruism takes on a life of its own at that point. Well, let me take just a short pause here and share with the listeners that testfixturedesign.com is where you can learn more about how Pipeline helps medical device engineering teams who need turnkey automated equipment or custom test fixtures to assemble, inspect, characterize or perform verification or validation testing on their devices. We're still speaking with Blaine Rader today and Blaine, I have to ask you a question about your master's program which was in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and I'm wondering, were you wanting to explore a career as an astronaut at that point?

Blaine Rader: 24:48

Unfortunately, no. It really had more to do with kind of the organization of some of the technical areas at Purdue at the time. One of the areas I really grew to really piqued my curiosity was sort of the mechanics of materials, the solid mechanics space. That was an area, I wanted to dig into a lot deeper in my graduate work once I decided to go in that direction. And it was kind of a couple of things came together, you know, one, as a graduate student, you're looking for somebody who's going to be able to fund your, you know, your graduate work. And you're also then trying to do that in an area that is in your interest area. And it just so happened at that point in time, there was a very strong solid mechanics core, in the, in the arrow in mechanical, sorry, the arrow school. In addition to the mechanical school at Purdue, there was a couple of professors at the time, CG Son, who was my master's advisor, James Doyle, another great guy, he was he's really, really good, solid mechanic structural dynamics guy. So it was, it was a great academic footing to step over the other school for a while, I really didn't have a whole lot of interest in continuing in that path, around down more of a, I guess, purely academic study, or really intense focus. And then I always wanted to come back to more of an applied and applied direction, which is why I ultimately came back to the the Mechanical school for my PhD work.

Aaron Moncur: 26:31

Well, that leads me to another question. You, you got into solid mechanics and eventually found your way into medical devices. So you kind of found your niche? Can you, Is there any advice that that you can give to maybe young engineers or, or even engineering students to help them find that area within engineering that they're going to be passionate about there? There's so many different things that one can do with a degree in engineering that I think it can feel overwhelming at times. So if you have any advice that they could, you know, help a young engineer make that choice? I think that'd be very valuable for people to hear.

Blaine Rader: 27:10

I have a great story that I think will, that'll fit there.

Aaron Moncur: 27:13

Perfect, love stories.

Blaine Rader: 27:14

So the one thing, the piece of advice I would give is, don't try to get it perfect. Right? I think a lot of people really get worried about, you know, if I don't get it exactly right. I mean, if in the wrong job, and this is it's just not going to work out, right. So I actually had two chances in my career to do what I'm doing today. And I'll explain. So when I finished up my master's degree, and I was kind of looking at that next step, I knew I wanted to do something more applied. And I was trying to go through that process to figure it out. I thought about going and working for a couple years, and went so far as to actually have an interview with this company in West Lafayette, Indiana called Med Institute. We talked about them a few minutes ago. And it was another professor I was working with on a side project was on their advisory board said at the interview and the interview was going great. I was interviewing with their president, I think I mentioned him earlier named Neil, for you're not he's a great guy. I ended up working for him years later, but the interview is going really good. He's also a PhD and former professor at Purdue, so kind of a very similar background interests. The technical part was going really well. He was just grilling me with questions. And then towards the end of the interview, he said, so you know, you know, what are your future plans? What do you want to do? And I said, Well, you know, for now, I think, you know, like to work for a while and kind of figure out the next steps. I think I'd like to go back and get a PhD someday. He looked at me and said, "Well, go do it". I think this interview was going really well up until like, five seconds ago. And so we had looked at and I didn't just end that way. But we had had some conversation that could we set up a degree program while I worked at an institute, we were never able to get all those to work, or anything like that to work out but we stayed in contact. And it was funny, then, you know, for your four years later, after finishing up my PhD program. Now I was having lunch with a friend of mine who was working in medicine at the time, you know, I was, you know, actively looking for jobs at that point in time. So we'll just just send us your resume. Okay, so I sent the nice folks at Med Institute my resume again, and this time, four days later, I had an accepted offer, working for Med Institute. So I think that's kind of kind of a fun way to look at it and say, Well, you know, you know, if you keep working hard, you keep doing the right things, you know, not making the perfect decision but make the best decisions you can at that point in time. I think you'll ultimately find something that works out for you.

Aaron Moncur: 30:06

I'm going to put you on the spot just a little bit here. I know, it's hard to come up with answers on the fly. But you mentioned, if you're doing the right things, you know, things will work out, what are some of the the right things that? Well, what are some of the things that you believe are the right things for engineers to be focused on?

Blaine Rader: 30:22

Yeah, that's a good question. I think I'd probably say it's probably a little bit broader than just engineers, but I think it's, you know, you know, work hard, you know, don't don't take yourself too seriously. You know, it's not everything's gonna go perfect. You're gonna make mistakes, you know, learn from those move on. Yeah, I think doing those types of things are really important. And, you know, I think don't, you know, don't get overly focused on, on, on from your particular path, and making sure it has to be perfect that I need to know, you know, ten steps down what I'm going to be doing, you know, in a career, 15 years from now, fact that matters, you might be wrong. And so I think there's you kind of take it step by step. And just make sure that, you know, on top of working hard, you're making good decisions about where you want to go, what you want to be doing, and being honest with yourself on that. And that's, that's kind of where I would say is important.

Aaron Moncur: 31:27

I think there's an interesting analogy there between just kind of that life lesson, and R&D. in general, right? In R&D, we can't really see the end, necessarily, we don't necessarily know what A to Z looks like. But we might know what A to B looks like. So get to B. And then from there, get to C, and so on and so forth, and eventually you'll find Z.

Blaine Rader: 31:52

. Right? That that's a thing. That's a great analogy. I mean, you don't know, it's kind of an important approach to know, if you look at it from an early development perspective. You know, you need to have that vision of ultimate where you could go, but you need to be focused on the highest, the highest risk issues first, and what's going to be, you know, what's the experiment you would do that would prove you a that this is not going to work? Because that's what you want to do first, because you don't want to waste time on a poor idea. Report direction. So how do you fail fast? And then pick the right direction?

Aaron Moncur: 32:32

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna go back to Med Institute, just for another second, and then we'll move on. After finishing your degrees and your teaching state, you're working at Med Institute. And I noticed that you started there as a senior level engineer. And then it looks like after only a year or so in that position, you were promoted to a director level position, which by most standards is that's a pretty quick rise up the ladder. How had you positioned or prepared yourself to evolve into these Senior and the Director level positions so quickly?

Blaine Rader: 33:10

And good question there. And I'd say, I think Cook has never been overly teared, if you will, from from a job architecture standpoint, subsequent to that we've continued to grow and continue to develop that is something important for our team. But you know, at that point in time, they were engineers, senior engineers, and then that was the only technical staff that that technical ladder that existed. And then you have sort of manager director on the management side of the organization. And so I would say, it was probably a combination of both being focused on the right things. And probably a little bit of luck, too. I think those two things pair well together. So but it's hard to going back to your last question to go ahead and tell somebody to be lucky. But I would say, better be prepared for it. And so I had started and was very conscientious about my work, I was very focused on getting the things done, that I felt was told were going to bring value. And kind of there was other things going on, at the same time that I was so focused on doing my work that I really wasn't even aware of. And so I think there was, you know, a need to make some changes from an organizational standpoint to to put some new leadership in place. Perhaps I had, you know, having worked there for three years, but also the experience of an interview that didn't go as I expected four years earlier. So a little bit longer relationship with the organization. That, but as you know, I was in the right place at the right time and somebody took a risk and putting me in a role of a leadership role. I went from one day being a senior engineer to, you know, all of a sudden having a 25, almost 30 person team, I would say it was, it was a bit like drinking from a firehose for a little while after that, but it was kind of focused, making sure you're focused on the right thing, and then being in the right place at the right time.

Aaron Moncur: 35:28

Well, I love that you said, you were prepared to be lucky. There's a gentleman Earl Nightingale who said that luck, or luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. Right. So be prepared, and you'll be lucky. Going back to your your that director role. So you mentioned drinking out of a firehose, how how did you even know how to be a director at that, you know, relatively young age did? Was it very clear to you what what success meant in that role? Or did you have to just kind of figure it out as you went along?

Blaine Rader: 36:02

I was, there was some support pieces put in place. I moved from, you know, reporting to the former head of head of my group to actually brought together a couple of groups, it wasn't just the group I was part of, it was a couple of different groups with similar roles and in that organization that they pulled together. And suddenly, I was reporting to the president of the company with that group of 20-25, sorry, things 25 people at the time. And, you know, they there was some other folks there with a lot of experience, there was a couple of them identified as kind of mentors for me as well. So I had not just the support of the president who put me in that role, but also identified a couple of other mentors along the way to kind of help help me through that process, which was invaluable. To be honest, I think, you know, being able to use others as a sounding board, and not just not just those that you report to, but to get other other opinions as well.

Aaron Moncur: 37:11

That I think that's a really big point. And nobody does this stuff on their own right. And having trusted mentors and players who have been there, done that and kind of can guide you along the way. That's such a huge, vital part of I think anyone's success. So from from Med Institute, you you move to Cook, which I guess, you know, there was already the parent company, so maybe you knew something about Cook already. And you started as the Director of Product Development for their aortic intervention business unit, and eventually transitioned to the Director of Global R&D, where you still serve today. One of the areas that you were responsible for as the product development director was establishing new product strategy. Can you take us through that process? I mean, where do you start? And what are the different steps involved?

Blaine Rader: 38:07

Yeah, so that, so when I stepped into that aortic role, it was an established but growing product line. Those those products were what are called aortic stent grafts, they're really an ability to replumb the entire entirety of your aorta, which is the largest blood vessel in your body that really connects the heart, all the way down to the iliacs, which are the blood vessels that go to each of your legs. And so, you know, that technology, the basic technology was really developed in the mid to late 90s. And we had R&D teams around the world, you know, working on these products, and had advanced it to a stage where we could make prototypes, even in limited clinical use, you know, devices that could do the most complicated parts of the aorta, which include the visceral segment, which is where there's four branches off of the aorta that go to your kidneys, and to your, your large and small intestine. And so you have, it's a very complex anatomy to be able to treat from a minimally invasive approach, because we're doing this all through, essentially, you know, four to five millimeter hole in your, in your femoral artery. And then also even in the aortic arch, where you have your really close proximity to be able to valve you have three different vessels that feed your arms and brain. Very important vessels. And so there was this whole array of things we could do, right? And so you have all these inputs coming into it, you have these very innovative physicians who want to push the boundaries, you have these patients who've never been able to be treated before. So you'd have that opportunity. And then ultimately, you have to be able to maintain a business because you build up, core products need to be able to maintain the course of the product. So it's really bringing all of those things together into a reasonable strategy. Because, you know, there is a limited budget, you have limited people, you have to apply to these projects. So it's really working to apply those resources in a reasonable strategy to move the product line forward.

Aaron Moncur: 40:42

What's the best compliment you've ever received?

Blaine Rader: 40:49

bBst compliment? Let's see. I'll stretch that a little bit, I think probably the.. the best thing. I'll stretch that's the kind of the best thanks for something we've worked on. I think someone in the medical device space, I would say, being able to meet a patient after a procedure, who's gotten a device that you've worked on.

Aaron Moncur: 41:17

That's a candidate. Yeah, that's incredible.

Blaine Rader: 41:20

That's, there's no words.

Aaron Moncur: 41:23

No, no, there. I mean, that they would move, it would move me to tears, I think you know, it, seeing the impact on something like that. That's, that's amazing. Well, I've just got a couple more questions for you. What are two or three habits or skills that you think all engineering teams should be developing to be most effective as a product development team?

Blaine Rader: 41:51

That's a great question, it's going to take that as an opportunity to kind of hit hit one of my, what I think is a hallmark of somebody in the innovative space. And it's something I think, would also probably benefit society in general, I think taking an empathetic approach to your work is critical in a innovative space. And going back to that example of when you're putting an engineer or a scientist, in a no war with the physician, it's that skill of empathy, that really helps the engineer put themselves in the shoes of that physician to understand you know, what they're experiencing what they're feeling, and then to ultimately be able to come up with a solution. I think that I think empathy is, is an underrated skill, when it comes to innovation.

Aaron Moncur: 42:46

That's fantastic. I always I always like to go back to gratitude as a skill or a habit. I don't know exactly how it fits into engineering, but maybe empathy is kind of the sister characteristic to develop. That's wonderful. Last question for you What what are one or two of the biggest challenges that you face kind of on a day to day basis at work?

Blaine Rader: 43:12

Now, I think the biggest challenges with within the constraints that you have, you know, whether they be technical problems, resource levels, budget, you know, being able to continue to meet the obligations and timelines to move things forward. I think that there's a never ending set of challenges. I think that wants to swell, any, any project down. And so, yeah, to me, I think that's probably the number one and you know, day in and day out, how can you keep something moving forward? So long as it should keep moving forward? There's occasionally maybe there's enough things going on, maybe we should stop it. But I think, yeah, just continuing to manage that project or program or whatever, whatever it is, and keep it moving forward. I think that's that, that's, that's the never ending challenge.

Aaron Moncur: 44:18

That reminds me of an experience I had in college, I had this roommate, Mark, Mark, if you're listening, you know who you are. And I was always so impressed with Mark, because he's a really smart guy. And it seemed like, he never got stumped on problems. Even if he didn't know the answer. He would figure out well, maybe I don't know how to solve this problem. But I do know how to approach this part of it. You know, there's something that I can do. I don't know that this is going to lead me to the answer, but there's something related that I can do. I'm going to try that and see what happens. That was something important, I learned from him. It Is to you know, and as a tool to keep things moving forward, maybe you don't know exactly what the solution is. But there's this knob that we can turn. I don't know exactly what's going to happen when I turn it, but let's try it and see what happens, and so on and so forth. Well, Blaine, you've been so generous with your time and sharing all of your wisdom and knowledge. Thank you so much for being on the show. How can people get ahold of you?

Blaine Rader: 45:29

Yeah, I'd be happy to take any questions via email. My email is very simple. It's just my first name, blaine_rader@yahoo.com. You know, you have any questions, you know, about whatever it is from an engineering medical devices, you know, career path. You know, do I even want to be an engineer, happy to happy to happy to have that conversation. I've probably spoken to hundreds of young engineers at this point in my career, and I'm happy to continue to do that always enjoyed joy that from, from a university perspective, and continue to enjoy that with a lot of different people at Cook or elsewhere around the world. So happy to happy to have conversations.

Aaron Moncur: 46:18

Wonderful, thank you. Well, I will make sure your email address gets into the show notes. And we'll have maybe a linked link to your LinkedIn page as well. Thank you again, so much, Blaine. This is this has been wonderful.

Blaine Rader: 46:31

Well, thank you very much. I'm happy to happy to do it. So have a great evening. Thanks.

Aaron Moncur: 46:39

I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of Pipeline Design and Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at testfixturedesign.com Thanks for listening.