Jeff Bertrand
Medtronic Brain Therapies
Irvine, CA USA
Career Roadmap
Jeff's work combines: Engineering, Design, and Problem Solving
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Sunny Hills High School
Bachelor's Degree
Biology/Biological Sciences, General
California State University Fullerton
Graduate Degree
Chemical Engineering
University of Southern California
Here's the path I recommend for someone who wants to be a Senior Principal Scientist, Research & Development:
Bachelor's Degree: Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering
Learn more about different paths to this career
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life took a while to figure out
1.
I think the biggest one was when I got Ds in a couple of high school classes and my parents backed off and said it's your life. It was a revelation to realize it was all down to me.
2.
Late 60s and early 70s were not good for manufacturing or aerospace jobs. I decided to avoid those fields
3.
Decided to go into health care, dentistry specifically.
4.
I liked working in a lab so took a QC chemistry job with a construction company while applying to dental schools. They paid me to go to night school at USC to study chemical engineering in polymers.
5.
Two things: 1. got laid off from my chemistry job and discovered med device. 2. failed to get into dental school.
6.
While doing lab work in my med device job, the combination of biological and polymer science education I had led me to make a suggestion that solved a problem my engineer boss had been working on.
7.
I bloomed in med device development and advanced quickly on my creative problem solving in spite of not having my doctorate.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Friends:
I heard discouraging comments about becoming a dentist (my original objective). Frankly, going into medical device, no one I knew really understood it, so I don't recall any negative comments.
How I responded:
My advice is to completely ignore naysayers, or at least their comments. Perhaps that's why I don't recall many negative comments.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
I've never had success from learning the doctrine in the text books, in fact I have to work very hard to absorb and retain this kind of information. Translating into something meaningful that tangible in a physical sense helps me a lot.