Jeffrey D. Smith – Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Director. Mr. Smith is a veteran of the healthcare industry and has held sales, marketing, operations, and management roles with Cardinal Health, Kyphon, Medtronic, and Depuy Spine. Mr. Smith was one of the founding members of Kyphon's Spinal Diagnostics business and was initially responsible for hiring, training, and leading that group’s national sales force. He was also co-founder and principal of Philippines spine product distributor, Pacific Spine. Mr. Smith is a graduate of Brown University and studied international finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Bruce M. McCormack, M.D. – President, Co-Founder, Director. Dr. McCormack is a Board Certified neurosurgeon who has pioneered minimally invasive spinal surgery techniques including thoracoscopic and lumbar endoscopic spinal surgery procedures. He has been in practice in San Francisco since 1992. In 1998, he founded the Neurospine Institute at California Pacific Medical Center, and serves as its director. Dr. McCormack earned his M.D. at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and his undergraduate degree from Brown University. He interned in general surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and served his residency in neurological surgery at New York University Medical Center. He also completed two fellowships in spine surgery at the University of New Mexico and the University of Florida. He held a full time faculty position at UCSF Department of Neurosurgery as Assistant Professor from 1994-1998.

Edward Fletcher Eyster, M.D. – Medical Director. Dr. Eyster graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans and completed his neurosurgical training at University of California San Francisco. As a board certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Eyster has been active both locally and nationally. Dr. Eyster is past President of the Florida Neurosurgical Society, Vice President of the Southern Neurosurgical Society and Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Dr. Eyster served many years on the Executive Committee of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and with Dr. Clarke Watts was founder of Think First—a head and spinal cord prevention program of the American Association of Neurological Surgery and Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He is currently in private practice with the Neurospine Institute in San Francisco, California.

David Schummers – Vice President, Marketing & Reimbursement. Mr. Schummers leads the Marketing and Reimbursement functions at Thayer. Most recently, Mr. Schummers served as Vice President, Marketing for EndoGastric Solutions Inc., where he lead the Marketing, Reimbursement and Training departments from 2008 to 2011 During his tenure at the company, Mr. Schummers contributed to growing revenue from $4 million to $20 million and securing two rounds of venture financing. Mr. Schummers joined EndoGastric Solutions from Kyphon Inc., where he served in a variety of leadership roles in Marketing, R&D, Operations and Finance, and played a key role in the integration with Medtronic Spinal and Biologics's dynamic stabilization franchise. Before joining Kyphon, Mr. Schummers headed the life science practice of the investor relations consulting firm the Blueshirt Group, worked in equity research at Piper Jaffray and contributed as a business writer to the medical device trade journal The Gray Sheet. Mr. Schummers holds a BA in Economics from Oberlin College.

Richard Heaslip - Vice President, International. Mr. Heaslip has almost 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry where he has primarily focused in the areas of Business Development, Sales & Marketing, Distributor Channel Development, and Clinical Affairs. In the early part of his career he lived and worked extensively in Asia but currently is based in Europe. Before joining Thayer Intellectual Property, Inc., he was Senior Vice President for International Operations at Keystone Dental Inc., he also was Vice President Emerging Markets for Kyphon, Inc., and he has held key positions with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals in their pharmaceutical, device, and diagnostic teams. Richard holds an Honors Biochemistry degree from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and an M.B.A. from Oxford University, England.

Edward Liou – Director of Engineering. Mr. Liou has led the development and engineering effort on over nine unique and innovative medical devices for numerous startup and established medical device companies. Over the course of his experience with these companies, he has experienced leading teams in all technical aspects relating to design, development, prototyping, testing, production, assembly, quality, service and regulatory affairs. He is also a co-founder of Alter-G, Inc., a company that produces extremely advanced rehabilitation equipment. Mr. Liou is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly), San Luis Obispo, and is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

David Undercoffler - National Sales Director. Mr. Undercoffler joins us from AstraZeneca where he held roles in sales and sales leadership. He began his medical sales career as a sales representative with AstraZeneca and was promoted to Customer Solutions Manager. Mr. Undercoffler was soon promoted to District Sales Manager and led his team in the Respiratory, Gastrointestinal, and CNS therapeutic areas. He joined Thayer in January 2011 as a Territory Sales Consultant and was soon promoted to Area Sales Manager. Mr. Undercoffler is a graduate of Villanova University and holds a degree in Economics.