Profile

I live in Turloughmore with my wife and two sons. I love getting outside to do some physical work especially when the lads come out to help too

We’re in the middle of building a shed at the minute. We’re doing the work ourselves in our spare time which makes it a long-term project, but we’ll be able to take over the world from there once we get it finished (check out what Earl Bakken did with his shed!)

We put a polytunnel up just before Christmas so that keeps us entertained too

I’ve worked in lots of different jobs

I started out in a Test Lab, mostly testing parts for Airbus A380 plane that was being developed at the time, but also some other stuff including testing parts for F1 cars

I then worked for an automation company. Work there included designing accessories for robots

Following that I worked in Cadbury’s chocolate factory as a packaging engineer

Then I went to Australia and worked designing mining equipment

Since I came back to Ireland, I have been working on medical devices

I now work for Medtronic

We mainly make medical devices to fix blocked blood vessels and hearts that have leaking valves or faulty electrical signals

I work on new products and my job is in process development. One of the most important part of my job is to make sure designs are as simple as possible. This has to main goals;

1. They are less likely to break (i.e. they are safer)

• They are easier to manufacture (cheaper to make)

This results in doctors getting to treat more patients

My job is about figuring out how to make new medical devices in our factory

We need to design the equipment to make our products. Sometimes this involves using robots and lasers and other cool stuff

We have 3D printers that we use to try out our designs

I work as part of a team that needs to consider lots of different details about our product;

• What the product needs to do to treat the patient
• What could potentially go wrong (so that we design safe products)
• How parts will be manufactured
• How all the parts will be assembled
• What equipment will we need to make the product (often needs to be designed from scratch)
• How the products will be sterilised and packaged
• How the doctor will use the product
• How the product will be disposed of

My typical day involves designing components, equipment and processes

Our products are typically deployed to the heart by transfemoral or transradial access. What this means is that the patient gets a needle inserted in their leg (transfemoral) or their arm (transradial) and the doctor steers through device through their blood vessels into their heart. The doctor uses x-ray to see where the product is in the patient

Our main goal is to make sure our products are safe to use and effective at making people better