About Us

Management Team

Timothy A. McCarthy – President and CEO

Tim McCharthy leads iWalk Prosthetic product launches Tim has dedicated his entire twenty year career to the commercialization of medical devices and services for people recovering from injury or illness. His experience spans both public and private companies. Prior to becoming President and Chief Executive Officer at iWalk in December 2009, Tim served as the VP of Sales and Marketing at Ossur Americas, a leading provider of prosthetic and orthopedic products. During his ten years at Ossur, the company tripled annual revenues. Earlier in his career, he held business development roles with the Chattanooga Group (a DJO company) and co-founded NER, a fast growing sports medicine and third-party billing company. Tim earned his M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and his B.S., with honors, from Northeastern University. He resides in Concord, MA with his wife Jennifer and their two sons, Nathan and Treyton.


Rick Casler - Senior Vice President of Research and Development

Rick Casler has led the development of medical robotsFor the past 25 years, Rick has led the development and commercialization of robust, high-performance, electro-mechanical systems.  These systems span the fields of industrial automation and control, industrial robotics, medical robotics, and microsystem assembly. What’s more, they’ve achieved best-in-class machine cycle time, footprint, and cost.  Rick has served in executive positions in both Fortune 100 and entrepreneurial enterprises, including serving as the CEO of Genesis Automation and the vice president of engineering of Adept Technology, where he drove development of scalable robotic systems. While the Vice President of Systems Engineering at Intuitive Surgical, he built a quality and reliability infrastructure that increased telesurgical system reliability; he also served as VP of Engineering and CTO of Electroglas. He led the development of a revolutionary wafer probe and microsystem assembly platform that was the first in the industry to employ active vibration cancellation technology. Rick is known for his unique abilities to blend strategy and execution—creating executable visions for product development teams—and to lead cross-functional project teams in the creation and commercialization of new robotic system architectures and platforms that achieve market leadership in cycle time, cost, and solution footprint.    Casler holds B.S.M.E. and M.S.M.E. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.  He holds over 25 patents in the fields of dynamic control, signal processing, robotics, and precision platform design. Rick joined iWalk in May 2008.


Shane Namack- Vice President of Sales

Ian Vawter global medical device finance experience spans capital surgical and biologics devices


Shane has over 15 years of medical sales experience with the last seven in the field of advanced Prosthetics as a sales leader at Ossur Americas. His background in kinesiology and physiology honed his expertise on body kinematics and gait function this obtaining a true understanding of how the body moves as it relates to prosthetic devices. As a leader on the Ossur management team he was part of the division that led to Ossurs double-digit sales growth over five years. His knowledge of advanced prosthetics has been invaluable for his customers as he aided them in their own business development goals. His addition to the iWalk team reinforces the commitment to bring industry leaders into key roles to bring a new scientific bionic platform to the market. Shane has a BS in Physiology from Youngstown State University.


David Reissfelder – Chief Financial Officer


Dave has over 15 years of experience building, growing and operating financial and administrative functions in high-technology environments. His background spans multiple organizations and industries, from privately held venture-backed startups to publicly held large multinational companies. Previously he was Chief Financial Officer of Reveal Imaging Technologies, a manufacturer of aviation security systems. At Reveal, he helped build the company from startup into a global player in the aviation security market, delivering double digit annual revenue growth and profitability, until its acquisition by SAIC. Before joining Reveal, he worked at Ciena Corporation, a global supplier of telecommunications equipment, where he was a key contributor in the development and implementation of the financial, accounting, administrative and logistics functions for the company’s international operations, which eventually included over 20 international locations in Europe, Asia and Latin America. He also worked at Omnia Communications, a venture backed telecommunications equipment manufacturer (acquired by Ciena), CBE Technologies, an IT services firm, and at Audax Group, a private equity firm. He began his career in public accounting at Pannell Kerr Forster. He became a licensed CPA in Massachusetts in May 1997 and holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Babson College. He lives in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA with his wife, Christine, and their two children.


John Coolidge – Senior Vice President of Operations


John has 28 years of successful operations experience with leading global medical device companies. He was an Officer and Vice President of Operations with Aspect Medical Systems, the market leader in depth of consciousness monitoring technology. John was responsible for Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Engineering, Service, Facilities & IT. His work was recognized when the company achieved national recognition as the winner of the coveted Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence. That same year Aspect was designated the 2006 Medical Device Manufacturer of the Year. During his tenure annual revenue grew from zero to $112 million; the company went public; and was ultimately sold and integrated into Covidien. After the acquisition, John continued to serve as Vice President of Manufacturing for the Respiratory and Monitoring division of Covidien. He was responsible for global supply of patient monitoring systems, three manufacturing plants in the U.S. & Mexico and contract manufacturing in Asia. Earlier in his career John held operations and product development positions on the senior management teams of divisions with Johnson and Johnson and Medtronic. John earned an M.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his B.S. from Wentworth Institute of Technology. He joined iWalk in September 2011.


iWALK BOARD OF DIRECTORS

William F. Doyle

Bill is the founder and managing director of WFD Ventures. He brings over 20 years experience in the advanced technology and healthcare industries as an entrepreneur, Fortune 50 executive, management consultant, and investor.  Prior to founding WFD Ventures, Bill was a managing director at Insight Venture Partners, leading its healthcare and outsourcing investment practices. Bill was a member of Johnson & Johnson’s Consumer Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Group Operating Committee and Vice President, Licensing and Acquisitions.  Bill was also chairman of the Medical Devices Research and Development Council and a director of Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, J&J’s venture capital subsidiary.    Earlier in his career, Bill was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. He was also involved in founding Durel Corporation, a joint venture of Rogers Corporation and 3M, and was the first employee of American Superconductor (NASDAQ: AMSC). Bill currently serves as a director of Avisena, Clozex Medical, GlobalCare, Hand Innovations, NovoCure, and Prisma. Bill served as an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business Administration in New York and holds a S.B. in engineering from MIT and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

John Simon

John is a managing director of General Catalyst Partners, and invests in both new and existing technology businesses. Areas of special interest include technology-intensive, industry-leading software and systems platforms. In particular, he focuses upon mission critical enterprise software applications and subsystems, software-based connectivity platforms with an emphasis on wireless, and software-based companies that sit at the intersection of media and technology.  Prior to co-founding General Catalyst Partners, John was founder, chairman, and CEO of UroMed Corporation. UroMed completed its initial public offering in 1994 and was subsequently merged to form Alliant Medical Technologies. Prior to founding UroMed, John led marketing and sales at Adaptive Networks and was a venture capitalist with Highland Capital Partners and Charles River Ventures. John earned a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

William A. Sahlman

William A. Sahlman is the Dimitri V. d’Arbeloff—Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. The d’Arbeloff Chair was established in 1986 to support teaching and research on the entrepreneurial process. The chair honors the late Dimitri d’Arbeloff (HBS ’55), whose entrepreneurial skills helped make Millipore Corporation a world leader in its industry.  Bill received an A.B. degree in economics from Princeton University, an M.B.A. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in business economics, also from Harvard. His research focuses on the investment and financing decisions made in entrepreneurial ventures at all stages in their development.

Paul Flanagan

Paul is a managing director of Sigma Partners, pursuing new investment opportunities and leveraging his operation experience to aid entrepreneurs in creating successful enterprises.  Prior to joining Sigma Partners, Paul was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with VistaPrint Ltd. increasing annual revenues from $40M to over $180M and leading the company through its initial public offering, which raised $138 million and resulted in a market capitalization of $1.2 billion.  Before VistaPrint, Paul served as President and CEO of StorageNetworks. Also previously serving as executive vice president, COO as well as CFO of StorageNetworks, Paul was instrumental in growing it from a start up to revenues of $124 million in three years, building the company to over 700 employees in 16 different cities and leading the company through an initial public offering and subsequent follow on offering achieving a multi-billion dollar market capitalization.  Prior to StorageNetworks, Paul was Vice President of Finance and Acting Vice President of Manufacturing for Lasertron, Inc. and began his career at Ernst & Young LLP as a senior manager in the Entrepreneurial Services, Audit Services, and Mergers and Acquisitions areas. Paul graduated with a B.S. in Accounting from Bentley College.

Geoff Pardo

Geoff Pardo joined Gilde Healthcare Partners in 2011 as a Partner working out of the office in Boston/Cambridge, MA and is focusing on Gilde’s investments in North America. He led the investments in InovaLabs and iWalk and represents Gilde as a member of its board of directors. Previously, he was a Partner at Spray Venture Partners where he led investments into Interlace Medical (sold to Hologic), Solace Therapeutics, TearScience and Cascade Ophthalmics. He served on the board of Solace, TearScience and Cascade, and was actively involved in Interlace and Conventus Orthopedics. He also served as President & CEO of Facet Solutions, a spinal implant company focused on treating lumbar spinal stenosis until the company was sold to Globus Medical in 2011. He has also worked at Cardinal Partners as an Associate leading their investing activity in the medical device sector. He was responsible for sourcing and managing investments in Replication Medical and CardioOptics. He began his career in medical devices as a product manager with Synthes USA. While there he led the market introduction of a bone graft substitute which was named Synthes’ impact product of the year in 1999. Geoff has a B.A. with honors in History from Brown University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business.

Dr. Hugh Herr - Founder and Chief Technology Officer


Dr. Herr, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, is the NEC Career Development Professor at the MIT Media Lab and holds a joint appointment at MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He is the Director and Principal investigator of the Biomechatronics Group of MIT’s Media Laboratory.  Herr received his B.A. in physics from Millersville University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University. Prior to coming to the Media Lab, Herr was Assistant Professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School.  Herr’s research interests include biomechanics, biological motion control, and the advancement of human rehabilitation and augmentation technology. His earlier prosthetic invention, the Rheo Knee, was licensed and commercially launched in 2004 and currently has 20% market share.

Timothy A. McCarthy - President and CEO

Tim has 20 years of successful commercial leadership experience in the medical device, sports medicine, rehabilitation and prosthetic marketplaces. His experience spans both public and private companies.  Prior to accepting this important leadership role at iWalk in December 2009, he was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ossur Americas, Inc. since 2003.  During his seven years in that position, total annual sales tripled from $50 Million to over $150 Million through organic growth, innovation, and strategic acquisition.  The prosthetic product growth included no acquired revenue and grew from $35 Million to $75 Million during his tenure, a 13% CAGR in an industry growing 2-5% annually.  Tim led a commercial team credited with launching an entire industry into the “bionic” age of prosthetics with the successful commercial launches of a series of advanced prosthetic technologies.  Earlier in his career, Tim spent six years in regional business development for the Chattanooga Group, a DJO holding, and three years as Co-founder and Commercial Leader of NER, Inc., a fast-growing sports medicine distribution and third-party billing company.  Tim  earned his M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and his B.S., with honors, from Northeastern University.