Management Team

Striving to provide the very best product to our customers means väsamed must hire and develop the very best employees. This commitment works from the top down. We are proud of our experienced and dedicated management team. They have acquired decades of trade and industry experience which translates into better leaders and corporate structure to develop and market our products.

Paulita M. LaPlante - has been the President and a Director of väsamed since September 1998 and Chief Executive Officer since December 1998. From June 1994 to September 1998, Ms. LaPlante served as väsamed’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Marketing and Business Development and was Director of Marketing and Business Development from April 1992 to June 1994. She also served as väsamed’s interim Vice President of Research and Development from January 1994 to September 1994. Ms. LaPlante served on the board of VidaMed, Inc. from November 1999 to August 2002 and on the board of Compex Rehabilicare from May 2005 to January 2006. Ms. LaPlante currently serves on the board of Qualigen, Inc.

Roberta (Robbie) Dircks, CPA (inactive) – Chief Financial Officer/ Director of Human Resources. Over twenty-five years of financial and management experience has proven to be powerful assets which Ms. Dircks brought to väsamed in 2006. Strong financial and executive experience has included: Executive Vice President/ CFO & General Manager –Incentives Division, Performark, Inc. (1998-2006), Vice President, Controller – Great Lakes Aviation (1994-1997), Vice President, Controller – Gage Marketing Group (1992-1994), Staff Vice President, Cost Analysis and Control – Northwest/ Republic Airlines (1985-1991). Ms. Dircks is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (Summa cum Laude) with a B.S. in Business/ Accounting, and earned a Mini-MBA in Marketing/eCommerce from
St. Thomas College (St. Paul, MN).

Daniel J. Bartnik - Chief Technology Officer (since 1998) has twenty-three years of product development experience with fifteen years in medical device development. At väsamed since 1991, Mr. Bartnik has developed and advanced technologies for noninvasive and minimally invasive measurement of various physiologic parameters and developed a team of individuals to support these efforts. Mr. Bartnik worked for Unisys Defense Systems (1984 to 1991) in advanced optical research and development, advanced signal processing, and embedded computer development. Mr. Bartnik worked for the Finnish Forest Research Institute (1983) where he developed software to perform statistical analysis.  Mr. Bartnik holds a B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

John Campbell - Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Mr. Campbell has over 22 years of sales and marketing experience within the medical market. In his career John has had US and global responsibilities for pharmaceutical, medical equipment and cardiovascular device technologies. His experience includes building a US sales and marketing organization to commercialize the ACIST endovascular equipment and disposable products to vascular interventional labs in the US market. Within two years of launch, revenues were built to $11MM which resulted in the acquisition of the company. He also led the commercialization of the embolic protection and perpheral stent technologies for ev3 Inc.

Kent R. Winger – Vice President of Operations. Mr. Winger has more than 23 years of cardiology based medical device manufacturing experience with disciplines including: manufacturing and quality engineering, production management, process development, R&D, purchasing & material control, and facilities management. Prior to joining väsamed in 1998 Mr. Winger held a variety of management and technical positions at SciMed Life Systems, a division of Boston Scientific Corporation (1986-1998) and Plastech Corporation (1983-1986).

Rose Griffith - Director of Clinical Affairs. Ms. Griffith's 29-year professional career has included 18 years of direct patient care and over 11 years of experience in the medical device industry. Her clinical responsibilities included procedural assistance to physicians and chart management as well as local site coordination of research studies and educational activities. In the medical device industry, her efforts have included both implantable devices and diagnostic capital equipment. Ms. Griffith has been responsible for monitoring operations and managing multiple clinical trials necessary for regulatory approval through IDE/PMA (Class III devices) and post-market adoption of 510(k) products. She has co-authored numerous science studies that have been presented and published in the medical literature.