Medtronics with Tom Holloran

Our Program on August 9^th was a talk by Tom Holloran, the retired CEO of Medtronic, and a former Shorewood resident and mayor. His talk was centered on Medtronics, so he didn’t talk about his experiences as mayor of Shorewood, nor did he talk about his many other accomplishments.

 

After graduating from law school, Tom went to work with a downtown (Mpls) law firm. One of their clients was a partnership that was working on an invention out of a garage. Being the youngest lawyer in the firm, the account fell into his hands. The product was the heart pacemaker, and because of the proximity to a couple of hospitals that specialized in heart issues, they met a number of now world-renowned heart specialists. Their product took off and Medtronics was born. When one of the original partners died, Tom was asked to take over as CEO. He was active with the company for over 40 years.

 

He answered questions, and said that there are 931 medical specialty companies in Minnesota, that getting a product approved by the FDA is a lengthily process, and most companies put their products on the market in Europe first. He also said that Medtronic has a device that handles the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease but does not affect or cure the cause.