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Clin. Cardiol. 24, 422–423 (2001)
This section edited by J. Willis Hurst, M.D., and W. Bruce Fye, M.D., M.A.
William H. Spencer III, M.D.
Baylor Heart Clinic, Smith Tower, Houston, Texas, USA
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| Fig. 1 Earl E. Bakken, Medtronic, Inc. |
Earl E. Bakken (Fig. 1) was born in 1924 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up there with a strong Norwegian heritage. For all intents and purposes, he was raised as an "only child" since his sister was 18 years his junior. As he had no siblings, he had the run of the house as a boy and a young man, and he used this freedom to great advantage. Even as a very small boy he appeared to be interested in the electrical wiring of the house and the porcelain insulators. He was constantly tinkering with electrical equipment, experimenting with batteries, electrically activated bells and buzzers, and, finally, robots that would puff cigarettes and wield knives. Finally, it was his mother who encouraged his scientific interest and provided him with the freedom for developing these interests at his own rapid rate.
As a student in secondary school, he was assured by his teachers that it was perfectly all right to be what today is called a "nerd." Bakken then became the nerd who took care of the public address system, the movie projector, and other electrical equipment at school. To his credit, he did have athletic interests and earned a varsity letter in track. During these formative years, he developed the habits that made him an inveterate reader which has stood him in good stead to the present day. Despite excellent formal instruction, he recognized that the most important lessons learned were those that were self taught. Since he estimates that the "half life of an engineer's education is three years," his life has been one of constant quest and investigation. It is of particular interest that in these early years his favorite science fiction film was Frankenstein, a fateful choice in view of his later endeavors with pacemakers. Through it all, he has faithfully followed his pastor's advice that it was his responsibility, if he pursued a scientific career, to use it for the benefit of humankind and not for destructive purposes.
Earl Bakken spent three years in World War II in the Army Signal Corps, serving as a radar instructor. He returned to Minneapolis and earned a B.S. degree, then a Masters Degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. His first wife, Connie Olson, was a medical technologist at Northwestern Hospital in South Minneapolis. As a graduate student, Earl Bakken visited her frequently in the hospital and finally began spending more and more time conversing with housestaff, attending physicians, and medical students in the hospital. As he became acquainted with the hospital staff, he slowly began providing, at their request, ad hoc medical equipment repairs. Soon it became obvious to him that these hospitals were in need of a person or company dedicated to medical equipment repair.
On April 29, 1949, Earl Bakken and Palmer Hermundslie, his brother-in-law, founded Medtronic Inc. and set up shop in a garage in Northeast Minneapolis for the purpose of repairing medical equipment. Medtronic's earnings for its first month of operation were $8.00. By contrast, Medtronic's gross earnings for January 2000 were approximately one half billion dollars.
Eventually, the company also began selling equipment to hospitals and physicians. The company barely made ends meet for eight years until October 1957, when Dr. C. Walton Lillehei approached Mr. Bakken and asked him to make a better pacemaker than the alternating current pacemakers then in use in the intensive care units. Within four weeks, Bakken produced a small, self-contained, transistorized, battery-powered pacemaker that could be taped to the patient's chest. The very next day, the pacemaker was used in the hospital on the first patient. Soon thereafter, Dr. Samuel Hunter and Norman Roth, a Medtronic engineer, developed a bipolar pacing lead which was more efficient than anything in existence. Following the development of the lead, Medtronic contracted with Dr. William Chardack and Wilson Greatbatch of Buffalo, N.Y., to manufacture and market an implantable pacemaker utilizing the Hunter-Roth lead. Following these early developments, Medtronic has encountered a few notable failures and many more outstanding successes to become the world's most prominent medical device manufacturer. In 1984, the National Society of Professional Engineers named the cardiac pacemaker one of the 10 outstanding engineering achievements of the last half of the twentieth century.
The development of Medtronic Inc. into the industry leader to whose example all others aspire can be attributed to much more than Earl Bakken's engineering genius. His insightful leadership of the company is summed up in the three words he uses as one of his mottos "ready, fire, aim!" That is, a given need is identified; a product is produced or a task is performed, and later refinements are made while the long-term possibilities of the product are debated. He believes one should act on one's intuition, not overanalyze, and correct the aim later. To quote Mr. Bakken, he believes that "failure is closer to success than inaction."
Since his "retirement" from Medtronic, Earl Bakken has made some of his greatest contributions to mankind. Specifically, he founded and developed the Bakken Library and Museum which emphasizes the role of electricity in medicine and life. He has helped develop Medical Alley, a consortium of various manufacturers in Minnesota to develop and promote the area as a hotbed of medical innovation. Earl Bakken is most proud of his endeavors to develop the big island of Hawaii as a "healing island." He has been instrumental in the development of the North Hawaii Community Hospital, the Five Mountain Medical Community, and the Archeaus Project. The goal of the Archeaus Project is to devise a system that would provide optimum health care for the North Hawaii community by the year 2010. This health care is envisioned as being very different from the care ordinarily delivered today. Mr. Bakken recognized very early that there was more to medicine and medical practice than simply double-blind studies and statistical significance. He noted that patients fared much better with certain treatments or devices when they were administered by caring and loving physicians. Similarly, the Archeaus Project is based on our knowledge of phenomena such as the difference between the relief of symptoms and true care, the interdependence of the body as well as the mind, the innate ability of the body to heal itself, and the curative effect of a positive relationship between patient and healthcare professionals.
Earl Bakken has followed his early pastor's advice very closely and spent a lifetime serving his fellow man. He created a company that is the envy of the industry and based it on a goal that helps humanity with instruments and appliances that alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. Representatives and employees of Medtronic Inc. have the reputation of going anywhere at any expense to satisfy a given customer's needs. Leading by example, Earl Bakken has made the values expressed in the Medtronic Mission Statement "to be recognized as a company of dedication, honesty, integrity and service"--his own values throughout his daily life.
Address for reprints:
William H. Spencer III, M.D.
Baylor Heart Clinic
Smith Tower
6550 Fannin, Suite 1901
Houston, TX 77030, USA
Received: May 2, 2000
Accepted: May 2, 2000