A biomed future -- Memphis needs more scientists, but for now, they're mostly not locally grown

The Commercial Appeal
October 22, 2006
By Daniel Connolly

When Elliot Sanders was an undergraduate student at the University of California-Irvine, a professor invited him to help design a wheelchair that could lift the rider to reach high objects or speak at eye level with a standing person.

The project inspired Sanders, who uses a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury from a car accident. He dropped plans to become a doctor and pursued biomedical engineering, believing he could help more people through inventions than by treating patients one at a time.

Today, Sanders works for Medtronic, a global medical device company with large operations in Memphis. He designs and tests devices to fight spinal disease. Creativity is critical in his work.

"Sure, you have to start with an idea," he said. "Otherwise you can't develop a product."

Medtronic and other Memphis-area medical device companies depend on the brainpower of engineers like Sanders to survive in a competitive field where a single invention can change thousands of lives and produce millions of dollars in profit. But in many cases, the companies can't find these key workers locally.

Sanders, 43, was recruited here from Virginia about 18 months ago, reflecting a local shortage in experienced biomedical engineers.

With Medtronic planning to add 600 jobs here over the next five years, and similar firms also looking to hire, the area has a growing need for top engineering minds and skilled people to support them.

Area medical device firms and nonprofit organizations are sponsoring initiatives to train local talent. The programs range from a science and engineering charter school to community college training for machinists.

There are several reasons for the current talent shortage.

The area's reputation as a hub for the orthopedic medical device industry rests on only three major firms: Medtronic, Smith & Nephew and Wright Medical Technology.

Combined, the three firms employ about 3,700 people. By contrast, FedEx Corp. employs about 30,000 local workers.

The small number of firms means there are few experienced workers interested in changing jobs at any given time, encouraging companies to look outside the area for candidates. And science and engineering students may leave the area because they believe they have little chance of landing a job here.

"I think we graduate a lot of kids who don't even know there's an opportunity," said Steve Bares, president and executive director of the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, a group dedicated to promoting the bioscience industry.

Sanders knew little about biosciences in Memphis until a recruiter approached him.

"The only references to Memphis I'd ever heard were references in songs," said Sanders, who was finishing a doctoral degree and working as a consultant before he came here.

He said students and workers tend to gravitate toward cities like San Francisco that are already known as biotech centers. But he said there are high-quality jobs in Memphis.

One of the groups dedicated to building up the local orthopedic medical device industry is the InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute. Ironically, it's making its major hires from other states.

The group's president and executive director, Dick Tarr, relocated to Memphis about a year ago from Warsaw, Ind., the nation's leading orthopedic medical device hub.

Tarr and his colleagues are looking to hire two top-level orthopedic scientists and a biomechanical engineer to lead research efforts, and it's unlikely that any of them will come from Memphis, he said.

"The lower-level people, the technician level people, those are people we could hire from the area," Tarr said. "But not these scientists. We have to recruit them from other places."

Tarr and others say the way to fight the engineer shortage is to use internships to give students hands-on experience.

Smith & Nephew plans to expand its internship program to include five to 10 students at a time, said William Poynter, the firm's director of strategic staffing.

Today, most of the firm's engineers don't come from the Memphis area, he said. The company wants to train workers and help keep talent in Memphis, he said.

Sanders said producing more local engineers won't happen overnight.

"There has to be a coordination between the industry and the university," he said. "And those opportunities have to build over time."

Working with local companies is a focus at the biomedical engineering department at the University of Memphis, which added an undergraduate program last year.

Among the first students to purse the major is Duong Nguyen, a Craigmont High School graduate.

Nguyen, 20, said she was drawn to biomedical engineering because it's hands-on and will allow her to pursue careers in medicine, research or other fields.

She lived in Minnesota years ago and doesn't like the hot weather in the South, but says the medical device firms might tempt her to remain.

"I don't think I want to stay in Memphis, but there's so many opportunities here," she said.

- Daniel Connolly: 529-5296

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Job training

Here are some of the local programs to train biomedical engineers and other workers for the orthopedic medical device industry:

Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering. A charter school for middle and high school students. Southwest Tennessee Community College and Tennessee Technology Center at Memphis

Programs to train lab technicians, skilled machinists and other biosciences workers:

University of Tennessee Health Science Center and University of Memphis: bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs in biomedical engineering.

With Medtronic planning to add 600 jobs here over the next five years, and similar firms also looking to hire, the area has a growing need for top engineering minds.