Mr. Smith joined Intuitive in June 1997 from Hillenbrand Industries, where he was Senior Executive Vice President. Mr. Smith joined Hillenbrand in 1978 and during his tenure he was also a member of the executive committee, the office of the president and the board of directors. Mr. Smith has also held positions with The Boston Consulting Group and IBM. Mr. Smith received his BSEE from Utah State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Dr. Guthart joined Intuitive Surgical, Inc. in April 1996 and became Vice President, Engineering in November 1999. He was promoted to Sr. Vice President, Product Operations in January 2002. Previously, Dr. Guthart was part of the core team developing foundation technology for computer enhanced-surgery at SRI International (formally Stanford Research Institute). While at SRI, he also developed technologies for vibration and acoustic control of large-scale systems. Upon receiving his doctorate degree from the California Institute of Technology, he was honored with the Richard Bruce Chapman Memorial Award. In addition, Dr. Guthart received a BS in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated magna cum laude and an MS and Ph.D. in Engineering Science from the California Institute of Technology.
Mr. McNamara joined Intuitive Surgical in April 1999 from Valleylab where he was Vice President of Marketing. Prior to this, Mr. McNamara worked at United States Surgical Corporation for nearly 17 years where he held positions in senior sales management, marketing and national accounts. Mr. McNamara graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA degree in Biology.
Mr. Mohr joined Intuitive Surgical in March 2006 as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Intuitive Surgical, Mr. Mohr worked at Adaptec, Inc. where he served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since July 2003. Before joining Adaptec, Mr. Mohr was managing partner of the West Region Technology Industry Group for PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he led the firm's accounting and audit advisory practice. During his 22 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mr. Mohr lead accounting relationships with many of the technology industry's most respected companies. Mr. Mohr received his BBA in accounting and finance from Western Michigan University.
Mr. Meltzer joined Intuitive Surgical in December 2007 as Senior Vice President, General Counsel. Prior to joining Intuitive, he served as General Counsel of FoxHollow Technologies, Inc. Mr. Meltzer has also served as General Counsel for Epicor Medical, Inc. and Ventritex, Inc. He graduated cum laude from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He received his J.D. from UC Hastings where he served on the law review. Mr. Meltzer, a registered patent attorney, was appointed as a special master in federal court where he assisted in the evaluation and administration of complex patent cases. He has tried cases to juries and has argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. His pro bono work has included the representation of indigents and non-profits before courts and administrative agencies and volunteer service in federal anti-poverty programs.
Mr. Alecxih joined Intuitive Surgical in September 2000 as Area Sales Manager, Texas and Central US. He was promoted to Director, National Accounts, in September 2002; to Director, Southeast US, in May 2003, to Vice President, Eastern Area Sales in October 2003 and to Vice President, U.S. Sales in January of 2007. Prior to joining Intuitive Surgical, Mr. Alecxih was a Regional Business Director for Indigo, the start-up urology division of Johnson & Johnson. Before joining Indigo, Mr. Alecxih worked as a sales representative for UltraCision, the start-up medical device manufacturer that developed the Harmonic Scalpel. Prior to this, he worked for Automated Instruments, a Division of US Surgical. Mr. Alecxih received his Bachelor's degree in Business from LeTourneau University in Longview, TX.
Mr. Brogna joined Intuitive Surgical as Director, Mechanical Engineering, in 1999, and has held the position of Vice President, Engineering since July 2005. At Intuitive, Mr. Brogna has led development of both the da Vinci® Systems and the EndoWrist® instruments. Before this, Mr. Brogna led design and development of complex robotic systems at Adept Technology -- the leading US manufacturer of assembly robots -- and at Unimation, the first US robotics company. Mr. Brogna is a graduate of Clarkson University where he earned a BS and a MS degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Mr. Castello joined Intuitive Surgical, Inc. in May of 2002 from US Surgical, where he was General Manager for their Puerto Rico manufacturing operations from 1998 to 2002. During his 10 years at US Surgical, Mr. Castello acted in the capacity of Engineering Director, Materials Director, Manufacturing Director and General Manager. Prior to US Surgical, Mr. Castello acted as Operations Manager for Clayton Industries and Engineering Manager for Ormco/Sybron. Mr. Castello received a BSME from California State University at Long Beach.
Aleks Cukic joined Intuitive Surgical in September 2001. Prior to joining Intuitive, Mr. Cukic worked for United States Surgical Corporation for 12 years and held senior positions in sales, business development and in marketing management for both the parent company and its Valleylab Division. He also worked for JHK Investments, a Connecticut based investment group, in a strategic planning capacity. Mr. Cukic holds a BS in Marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Mr. Grillo joined Intuitive Surgical in August, 2008, as Vice President, Business Development. Prior to joining Intuitive, Mr. Grillo worked for Kyphon / Medtronic since January 2006, most recently as Vice President, Marketing and Business Development. Prior to Kyphon, Frank worked for Boston Scientific Corporation, where he held the positions of Vice President, Marketing, Women's Health, Urology/Gynecology Division from May 2002 through January 2006, and Vice President, Marketing, New Modalities, Urology Division from March 2000 through April 2002. Prior to his roles in marketing, Frank was the Director of New Business Development for the cardiology and drug delivery groups at Boston Scientific from September 1996 through February 2000. Mr. Grillo holds an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University.
Mr. Gong joined Intuitive in November 1997 from VLSI Technology, Inc., where he was the Group Controller for the Computing and Consumer Products Divisions. Previously, Mr. Gong held financial management positions at Sun Microsystems. He also served as a management consultant at Ernst and Young LLP. Mr. Gong received a BS from Stanford University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Mrs. Rider joined Intuitive Surgical in February 2006. Before joining Intuitive, Mrs. Rider was Senior Vice President, Global HR for Sunrise Medical, Inc., a global durable medical equipment manufacturer based in Carlsbad, California. Prior to Sunrise, she held the positions of VP, Human Resources, for Biosense Webster, a division of Johnson & Johnson and Vice President of Human Resources for City of Hope, a leading oncology hospital and research center located in Duarte, California. Mrs. Rider obtained her MBA from Pepperdine University and her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College.
Mr. Morales joined Intuitive in March 1999 as Director of Field Service. He was promoted to Vice President of Customer Support in July 2005 and is responsible for Field Service, Products Support, Order Management and Customer Service Operations. Prior to joining Intuitive, Mr. Morales was with Acuson for more than 13 years , where he held various management positions in Field and Customer Service. Mr. Morales received his bachelor's degree from The DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix, Arizona.
Mr. Nguyen joined Intuitive Surgical Inc. in April 2004 from Macrovision Corporation, where he was Director of Intellectual Property and Chief Patent Counsel from 1999 to 2004. Previously, Mr. Nguyen was Patent Counsel for Cirrus Logic Inc. and Senior Associate for the law firm of Wagner, Murabito & Hao. Before embarking on his legal career, he was a mechanical and lead electro-mechanical engineer at Hughes, as well as General Electric. Mr. Nguyen received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, a MS in Electrical Engineering (with a robotics specialization) from the University of Southern California, where he was a Hughes Fellow, and a JD from Santa Clara University School of Law, where he was an Editor of the Santa Clara Law Review.
Mr. Rivaux joined Intuitive Surgical in December 2005. Most recently, Mr. Rivaux had served as Vice President, Central Europe for Tyco Healthcare and also served as General Manager for Tyco Healthcare. He has held various other senior management positions for Tyco and Kendall SA, including President and CEO - Kendall S.A. Mr. Rivaux attended the High Commercial Institute in Lille, France and Sup de Co - Lille (Lille Graduate School of Management).
Mr. Rosa joined Intuitive Surgical, Inc. in March 1996 and has held leadership positions in engineering, clinical development, marketing and product development. He has significantly impacted both the design of the da Vinci Surgical System as well the clinical applications that the System enables. Prior to joining Intuitive, Mr. Rosa contributed to the development of trans-esophageal transducers for Acuson Corporation. Mr. Rosa graduated magna cum laude with a BSME from California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. He additionally holds a MSME from Stanford University.
Dr. Nowlin joined Intuitive Surgical in 1996 from SRI International, where he was involved in developing SRI's prototype surgical system. Dr. Nowlin became part of Intuitive Surgical’s system software leadership team in 1999, then was promoted to Director in 2001 and Senior Director in 2006. Dr. Nowlin received his B.A. in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Virginia, where he was honored by each department as its outstanding graduate; he then received a Masters Degree and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, with an application in robotics. Dr. Nowlin is co-author of more than a dozen U.S. and international patents, as well as several technical conference and journal publications.
Prior to joining Intuitive Surgical in December 2007, Ms. Uyesugi served for 10 years as the Vice President of Regulatory, Clinical and Quality Affairs at Endologix, Inc., for implantable stent grafts in the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. Before working at Endologix, she held regulatory positions at Neuro Navigational, Trimedyne, Baxter, Shiley and Allergan Pharmaceuticals covering a wide range of Class II and Class III devices and drugs, for a total of 30 years experience. Ms. Uyesugi obtained her B.A. from Ohio State University , B.S. from California State University, Long Beach and M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.
Mr. Nagel joined Intuitive Surgical in November 2000. Prior to joining Intuitive Surgical, Mr. Nagel worked for U.S. Surgical Corporation for 9 years, where he held positions in sales, sales management and was the Senior Director of Training & Development. Mr. Nagel received a B.S. in Operations Management and Marketing from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.
Mr. Murtha joined Intuitive in October of 2006, from SAI Global Consulting, where he served as Principal Lean Consultant. Mr. Murtha spent 16 years at U.S. Surgical, having served the full range of Operations management capacities from Manufacturing Supervisor, to Managing Director of their European subsidiary, USSC gMBH, to Senior Director of Continuous Improvement. He subsequently launched and managed a successful Lean consulting business, and prior to joining SAI Global, managed a tech start-up. Mr. Murtha received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Connecticut.
Mr. Lucchesi joined Intuitive Surgical in May 1998 from KLA-Tencor, where he was Director of Application Development and Support. He has also held senior information systems management positions with Sybase and Sun Microsystems. Additionally Mr. Lucchesi has worked in Information Systems consulting with Andersen Consulting (currently Accenture) and Operations/Manufacturing consulting with Pittiglio Rabin Todd and McGrath. Mr. Lucchesi holds an MBA from University of California Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Francisco.
