Online Exclusives

OWM: Please describe the education, training, and work experiences that have prepared you for your current position as CEO of EHOB.   
After becoming a doctor through Indiana University’s medical program in 1970, I specialized in otolaryngology and head and neck surgery for nearly 30 years. This was the beginning of my extensive training in soft-tissue survival. In the process of developing a positioning mattress to postoperatively elevate my patients’ heads, I learned that this product, known then as the Position Perfect®, also helped prevent and treat pressure ulcers. Fascinated by the fact that my past training and reconstructive surgery experience closely resembled the techniques recommended for pressure ulcer prevention and treatment, I founded EHOB, Inc in 1985 while continuing my practice as a physician.

OWM: Please describe the education, training, and work experiences that have prepared you for your current position as CEO of RecoverCare.   Before becoming CEO of RecoverCare, I spent much of my 20-year career focused on understanding operations and finding ways to improve them at diverse global companies, including Tyco, General Electric, McKinsey & Company, and Exxon. Just before joining RecoverCare, I served as President of the Alcoa Oil & Gas unit, where I fast-tracked its market entry with five interdependent global contracts and commercialized seven new products. I’m finding my experience working in technology-based and technical product industries particularly valuable in my role at RecoverCare. Also, this post combines my dual interests in healthcare and management. Starting out as a biomedical engineer, I earned a BS in chemical engineering from John Hopkins University and volunteered at the John Hopkins Hospital as an undergraduate. I also hold an MBA in Finance/Marketing from Columbia Business School.

  Warren Cooper, MD, planned on working abroad for just 1 year before settling down and joining a practice in the United States. Little did he know when he boarded the first plane to Bangladesh he would become so immersed in a world desperate for medical care, that 13 years later his heart would still be overseas, and his practice would be in exotic countries struggling to develop.   Dr. Cooper spent much of his childhood living overseas with his missionary parents. When it was time for college, he returned to the US and earned his undergraduate degree at Wheaton College in Illinois and his medical degree at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

OWM: Please describe your education, training, and work experiences that have prepared you for your current position as CEO of NovaBay Inc.   
As a young man, I worked as a pharmaceutical sales rep for my father’s company in Tehran, Iran. I always enjoyed interacting with healthcare professionals and found providing patients with medications that would have a positive impact on their quality of life very rewarding. Over time, I grew more interested in the mechanism of action of drugs and their power to cure, such as with antibiotics, or to treat diseases like diabetes. After arriving in the United States, I spent years studying chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and University of San Francisco, and ultimately I received my PhD in synthetic organic chemistry at UC Davis.   Post graduation, I was eager to invest my knowledge in the field of pharmaceutical drug development. I gained valuable experience working at Sigma Aldrich (St. Louis, MO), Sanofi Aventis (Bridgewater, NJ), and Applied Biosystems (Carlsbad, CA). My early years working at my father’s pharmaceutical company and later for Sanofi Aventis prepared me for a career in healthcare and specifically the pharmaceutical industry. My experience in drug development combined with my entrepreneurial spirit led to my founding of NovaBay Pharmaceuticals in 2000.