Ms. Blake is a veteran in the spine and orthopedic industry, with over 25 years of sales, marketing, management and operations experience in the medical device field. For two decades, she has held leadership positions with publicly traded and privately held companies, establishing new vision, developing strategic direction, recruiting management, sales and marketing teams consistently resulting in 'over market growth' as well as rapid development and FDA approval of Class II and Class III medical devices.
Recent assignments include the implementation of a strategic plan for Encore Medical’s spine products group, culminating in triple digit growth, as well as providing strategic guidance to an early stage spine implant company acquired by Medtronic. Ms. Blake's vast experience in the spine / orthopedic markets, her track record for establishing surgeon focused organizations as well as strong established relationships within the medical community provide additional depth to the team that she has created to lead the company’s continued product development and commercialization efforts. Prior to her work in the medical device industry, Ms. Blake held a leadership position for a multicenter provider organization, developing a novel, computerized patient assessment database program in affiliation with the Harvard Center for Community Health. Ms. Blake completed the University of Tennessee’s program for Health Care Administration, graduating in 1973.
John Cobb, M.D. is certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons since 1976 and certified by the American Board of Spine surgeons since 2001. He has been practicing in Lafayette Louisiana after graduating in 1970 from Louisiana State University School of Medicine. He did his internship and residency at New Orleans charity Hospital.
He is currently involved in a wide range of associations as founder and partner including; Lafayette location of Meadowbrook Rehabilitation Hospital (12 years), Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital (3 years), Southern Spine Institute's out-patient facility (10 years), Practical Healthcare (15 years), Surgical Spine, and Acadiana Imaging.
Hospital affiliations include; Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Lafayette General Medical Center, Southwest Medical Center and Heart Hospital of Lafayette.
Dr. Cobb is currently active in the following business ventures; Jeunesse, which is Medispa (aesthetics, longevity, age management and cenegenics), as a founder of C-C Medical where he invented and patented the Allograft prep instruments, along with being actively involved as founder and managing partner at the Lafayette Bone and Joint Clinic.
His previous business ventures include the following; Swenson Ice Cream Factory as owner/operator for 10 years, founder of Copper Rivet Retail Clothing for 15 years, founder/operator of Land Development Company, an acquisition and development property company for mobile home parks, founder of the Blue Water Charter Company, which is an offshore sport-fishing company in the Gulf of Mexico and Bahamas, founder/operator of a vehicle and equipment leasing company called Oil City Leasing, and a partner in a building company called Home Construction Company.
Other associations that Dr. Cobb is currently involved in as a founder/owner include, Environmental Solutions, Revenue Management Solutions, Woodland Hills Equestrian Center, and Corporate Aviation.
Mr. Koman, 44, is Founder and Manager of MSK Investments, LLC, a venture capital and equity fund that invests in both start up ventures and existing companies. Koman has been activity in the VC arena as an angel investor since the late 1990s and launched MSK in 2002. Since then MSK has invested in a variety of successful companies, including: Semaphore Pharmaceuticals, SOMA Networks, EBETS, Espeedient, Akermin, Force 10 Networks and Augry Fund.
Mr. Koman is a Co-founder of US Spine and continues to serve on the company’s board. He also is a member of the St. Louis Arch Angels investment group, which has invested a total of $14 million in a variety of start up and early stage companies since 2005. He is Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Equity Capital Management, LLC and the ECM Income & Growth Fund, LLC, a private real estate investment company. In addition, he is President of Koman Properties, Inc., a Midwest-based retail development company through which he has developed more than 4.5 million square-feet of office, retail and casino assets throughout the United States. He is Co-owner and President of the Casino Queen gaming operation in East St. Louis, Ill., directly across from St. Louis’ Gateway Arch.
Mr. Koman serves on the board of the Missouri Growth Association, is a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and has been a member of numerous panels for ULI, the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, and the International Council of Shopping Centers. He also maintains or has had recent Board of Director involvement with several local and national charities, including Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, the Alzheimer’s Association, John Burroughs School, Junior Achievement and Gateway Trailnet.
Mr. Koman and his various real estate developments have also been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, most notably in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and a variety of real estate trade journals.
He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986 with an AB degree in Economics.
positions with publicly traded and privately held companies, establishing a new strategic sales plan, management of a national sales force as well as develop strategic corporate branding. He most recently served as President and CEO of Vertebron, Inc. helping increase sales threefold in less than a year. Prior to his work for Vertebron, Inc., he served at Blackstone Medical, Inc. for six years, where he most recently served as Vice President, Domestic Sales. While at Blackstone, he developed and implemented the company’s strategic sales plan for accelerated growth and profitability, lifting domestic sales from a run rate of $700k per month to over $9 million per month, through to acquisition. Paul received his Bachelor of Science degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and his Masters of Business Administration from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York.
Barry is an accomplished senior executive who has twenty-five years of experience successfully managing numerous life science and high-tech companies. In 2001 Mr. Smith was a founding executive member of an MBO team that successfully acquired and integrated companies in the United States, Germany, Italy and China into a single source solution for the on-site gas market. Mr. Smith has successfully managed multi-national organizations with sites in the North America, Europe and Asia. Most recently Mr. Smith has joined Texcel Medical as President & CEO; Texcel Medical is a medical device service company that specializes in contract development and manufacturing of hermetically sealed electro-mechanical implantable pulse generators, implantable pumps and orthopedic devices. Prior, Mr. Smith was Chief Operating Officer for a contract design, development and engineering company. Barry has a BS in Chemical Engineering from State University of New York @ Buffalo.
Mr. Truetzel has over twenty years of experiencing leading and guiding entrepreneurial and early stage companies as both an investor and an operating executive. After business school, Mr. Truetzel began his professional career as an investment banker with A.G. Edwards, now Wells Fargo Advisors, where he rose to the position of Managing Director. After ten years of experience, he left the investment banking profession and gained valuable operating experience as the Chief Financial Officer of First USA Paymentech, (“Paymentech”), one of the largest credit card processors in the world. David was responsible for managing all of the financial functions of the company including assisting Paymentech in its successful initial public offering and listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
During his tenure at Paymentech, he successfully managed approximately twenty acquisitions and raised nearly $300 million in debt and equity financing. After the sale of First USA and Paymentech to Bank One , Mr. Truetzel joined Llama Holdings, a merchant banking firm, where he executed numerous merger and advisory assignments and participated as a principal on several buyouts. Since 2000, Mr. Truetzel has been both an investor and an advisor holding the positions of Managing Director of Gryphon Investments II, a technology-focused venture capital firm and General Partner of Hela Capital Partners, a partnership focused on leveraged buyouts in the financial services industry. In 2007 he co-founded Augury Capital Partners, LP, a private equity firm focused on late stage financial services and life sciences investments, where he serves as one of its General Partners. Mr. Truetzel holds a B.S. in Accounting from St. Louis University, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a certified public accountant. He sits on the Board of Directors of Enterprise Bank, Clearent ,LLC, Paranet Solutions LLC, T3 and Verifi, Inc.
Robert has successfully managed a number of life sciences and Medical Device companies and divisions of larger life science companies on three continents, as well as a successful life-science advisory company and Private Equity Group. Mr. Wetzel founded Alchemy Advisors in 2001, an advisor to managers and owners of private life science and Medical Device companies and private equity/venture capital groups, where Robert performed advisory services including temporary Senior Management, corporate development, corporate finance, regulatory, due diligence and strategic issues. Mr. Wetzel founded Augury Capital in 2007, an emerging technologies private equity fund with investments in mid-stage or later companies with an emphasis in the medical device and financial services information technologies sectors.
Mr. Wetzel was a Senior Executive at Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, a leading life science company, for over seven years where he was the Managing Director of Eastern Asia and the Operations Manager for Continental Europe. Robert was the Founder and Executor of Solutia’s Pharmaceutical Services division where he created Solutia's world-class pharmaceutical services division via investments totaling over $115 million and directed their rapid international growth. Robert was a LBO banker at the Bank of New York. Robert is on the Board of Circle Medical, Texcel Medical, and US Spine, as well as a founder, board member, advisor or owner of numerous other emerging life science and medical device companies.
Mr. Wetzel is fluent in English and German, and he received a B.A. from Vanderbilt University, a M.B.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University Tepper School of Business, and a Biotechnology for Business certification from Duke University.
