Achievement Award (/awards) : New Cardiovascular Horizons

PIONEER • INVENTOR • SCIENTIST
FOUNDER OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING • LIFETIME ENTREPRENEUR
SELFLESS HUMANITARIAN • PHILANTHROPIST

New Cardiovascular Horizons is honored to present the 7th Annual Achievement Award to Earl E. Bakken. As the co-founder of Medtronic, Inc. and the developer of the first wearable external battery-powered pacemaker, Mr. Bakken has pioneered biomedical engineering as a selfless humanitarian for more than seven decades. In his own words rest the secret of his success, “you work here not just to make money for yourself or the company, but to restore people to full life.” “Ready, Fire, Aim!”

From an upbringing in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, to honors at the University of Minnesota, to the “Big Island” of Hawaii; from an encounter with “Frankenstein” and electricity, to Dr. Walton Lillehei; from the development of the first pacemaker, to the defibrillator, to implantable insulin pumps, to brain and muscle simulators, to balloons, stents and heart valves; from a graduate school dropout, to the founder of Medtronic where every six seconds a patient somewhere in the world receives a Medtronic implant; from a 600 square-foot garage, to near bankruptcy, to a company with over 250 facilities in 120 countries with 34,000 employees; from a “power outage” on October 31, 1957, to “Blue Babies,” to a popular electronic magazine article that has helped save the lives of thousands; from a World War II air force radar instructor, to hundreds of honors including: the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Entrepreneur of the Year Institute; from the Bakken Heart Brain Institute, to the Bakken Library & Museum, to the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, to Five Mountains in Hawaii, to the Kohola Center, to the North Hawaiian Community Hospital; from 1949, to Houma in the 1980s, to today in 2007...

Earl E. Bakken has not only created a new medical industry, he has changed the face of cardiovascular care. So... “READY, FIRE, AIM!”