After a heroic battle with breast cancer, Elizabeth Routson passed away on January 2, 2008 at the
age of 45. Beth was an Executive-in-Residence at CCF Innovations since 2006. In that role, she advised CCI
regarding technology assessment, marketing opportunities, product concept development and provided industry
contacts. Her background included over twenty years of medical device marketing and business development experience.
Most recently Beth was the President and CEO of a medical device start-up in infection control
in addition to running her consulting firm. Previously, she was a senior director at Edwards Lifesciences in charge
of business development. In this role she was responsible for the acquisition of key intellectual property and medical
device start up companies.
Beth also had experience as a senior manager in medical device marketing for both Baxter and
Medtronic and completed international assignments in Europe for both medical device companies. She launched several
emerging technologies and devised market expansion strategies for untapped market segments, leading to accelerated
growth in sales.
Beth is survived by her family in Minneapolis.
George
Trutza spent 11 years at US Surgical in a number
of senior sales and marketing management roles, including President, Kendall Medical & Surgical Division. As Vice President
of Marketing, George took over the Suture business driving
it to over $200M in sales and successfully laid the foundation
for the integration of the acquisition of Davis&Geck suture
products. Subsequent to Tyco’s acquisition of United
States Surgical George was promoted and spent over two years
at Tyco Healthcare serving as President of the Kendall Medical
& Surgical Division and President of Tyco Healthcare Group
Canada with annual sales of $600M and $150M respectively.
He left Tyco to join Surgicon Inc. a Connecticut based turnaround
minimally invasive medical device company. From there he joined
Accellent, Inc a medical device contract manufacturing company
as EVP & GM of the companies Endo Division, and since
April 2005 has been evaluating opportunities in the spine
area of medical devices. 
Doug
Redding. Doug has more than 30 years experience in finance and operations, most recently as Chief Operating Officer of VIMAC Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with investments in information technology and life sciences. In addition to managing firm operations, Doug spent a substantial portion of his time supporting portfolio company management on planning, budgeting, infrastructure and financing.
