Medical Instruments Maker Starts New Operation

By Deneen Smith
Kenosha News

If at first you do succeed, try, try again.

One of the founders of Beere Precision Medical Instruments, a medical instrument manufacturer that became one of Kenosha County's business success stories, is launching a new business in the industry after selling his former company.

Along with partner Richard Beere, Guy Bradshaw, a former Snap-on Medical employee, launched Beere Medical from a Racine machine shop in 1993. The company moved to the Business Park of Kenosha in 2001, and in 2002 the company was purchased by Teleflex Inc. It currently has about 200 employees. Bradshaw stayed with the company as president for a time after the sale, but left to pursue his own interests.

This year, Bradshaw launched another medical instrument company, with four of his former Beere associates joining him as partners in the new startup company. Like Beere, the company focuses on designing, manufacturing and marketing medical instruments, largely for use in spinal surgeries.

After moving into an office and adjacent shop at 5732 95th Ave. in the Business Park of Kenosha in February, the new company is already in expansion mode. The company is adding employees and new production machinery; it recently signed a lease to expand its facility. "We set a goal and we blew past that goal," said President Keith Easter of the founders' expectations for the business' first year.

The company recently added computer-assisted manufacturing equipment and milling equipment, along with silicone molding operations, and expanded its manufacturing operations to 10,000 square feet from 2,700 square feet. The company has about 17 employees and projects to have at least 20 by year's end, with projected sales of $4 mil- lion to $5 million in 2007.

Easter said that five people including Bradshaw were involved in the startup of the company. All five were formerly associated with Beere, which is based just down the street from Bradshaw Medical's offices. He said the group started working out of their homes, focusing on product development, before moving into the offices.
He said the company already has more than 20 patents for new products.

Many of those new instruments were designed by Dr. Hua Gao, vice president of research and development.

Gao, a cardiac surgeon, came to the United States from China in the 1980s to work on a research project on the creation of an artificial heart. When that project, based in Milwaukee, was complete he signed on with Beere.

"I have a background in engineering and medicine," Gao said. "When I was a kid I liked tools, machinery. I am a mechanical person." Designing surgical tools, he said, allows him "to combine the surgery and the medicine and the mechanical all together."

The tools designed by Bradshaw, many of them resembling tools the average mechanic would have in his tool chest, are used during orthopedic surgeries, largely spinal surgeries, to install medical devices like artificial joints. Unlike standard tools, the products produced by Bradshaw have to stand up to the rigors of being repeatedly sterilized for surgery.

More importantly, the tools have to be exceptionally precise - too much torque when a surgeon is using a tool to install a spinal device and there could be serious damage to the bone structure.

Easter said the goal of Bradshaw Medical is to create a small, innovative firm that can respond quickly to customers. The firm works largely with medical device manufacturers, tailoring its tools to work with the medical devices. "They're always coming out with new implant systems," Easter said.

But the company will work with individual doctors as well, happy to take a design sketched out on a napkin and engineer it for the customer.

Easter said that despite the company's rapid growth in its first year, Bradshaw Medical's goal is to remain relatively small, not seeking to expand into a larger, corporate environment. "We're able to be a lot more flexible in a small environment," Easter said.