VICTORIA, British Columbia, December 4, 2017 – Peter Kazakoff and Mike Sanders received StarFish Medical’s highest honors for outstanding contributions to company success, the 2017 Innovation and Carry On awards, at the organization’s annual Christmas party on Saturday, December 1, 2017.

Peter Kazakoff and John Walmsley
Peter Kazakoff, Electrical Engineer, received the Chris Denny Memorial Award for Innovation. Mike Sanders, BD Applications Manager, was selected for the StarFish Keep Calm and Carry On Award. Nominations submitted by company employees cited a variety of achievements and outstanding performance for each award.
The Chris Denny Memorial Award for Innovation honors someone from the StarFish group of companies who has immersed themselves deeply in a technical problem in order to find a brilliant solution to the design challenge, as-stated, or more deeply. The recipient is chosen by a John Walmsley, COO, and Michael Lubben, Director of Product Development.
John Walmsley explains Peter’s selection: “Faced with a project challenge to fit an optical system into an incredibly small space in a novel medical device, Peter Kazakoff embraced the constraints to design, test and enhance a novel solution that has the high performance required while fitting exactly as needed.”
Kazakoff highlighted the project’s cross-functional team efforts in his acceptance, “On behalf of the team which worked on this project, thank you for this award honouring Chris’ memory. I would specifically like to thank Aaron Philippsen and Kenneth MacCallum – without their technical assistance, this achievement would not have been possible. I would also like to thank the biotech team for their hard work and contributions in the lab – this work would not have been possible without theirs.”
The Keep Calm and Carry On Award honors an employee who rises to challenging times with compassion and grace making employees, customers, and leadership feel more confident, positive, and well looked after. It is selected and presented by StarFish Group CEO and Founder, Scott Phillips.

Mike Sanders and Scott Phillips
Mike Sanders’ nomination reads: “I have had the pleasure of working with Mike on several new business opportunities this year. Despite having an over loaded plate, Mike is calm, collected, completely up to speed with the client and their needs, extremely responsive, dependable, and if that isn’t enough, (he) suggests ways to improve business developments. Mike’s bike is the first one in the bike locker each morning, and often the last one there at night. The heavy lifting he does behind the scenes in Business Development is literally keeping the lights on at StarFish, and he handles it with extreme grace and composure.”
Scott describes his choice, “Mike has been important part of our success for several years. During this year’s scale-up he met the challenge and kept things running smoothly. Company-wide support and gratitude for Mike was confirmed when the audience gave him a standing ovation at the event.”
Sanders accepted the award with typical humility and grace, “I am very thankful to be working with the smart, kind and productive people at StarFish Medical. It has been a whirlwind year and product development and quality teams desire a heartfelt thanks. Their resilient support of both new and existing clients has enabled our growth, and continue to enable business development to carry on in a somewhat calm manner.”
About StarFish Medical
StarFish Medical is an ISO 13485 certified product engineering firm with offices in Victoria, British Columbia, and Toronto, Ontario, 100% dedicated to the medical device and life science marketplace. StarFish partners with innovative companies to create and manufacture
breakthrough products for a full range of medical specialty areas including: Cardiovascular, Digital Health, IVD, Ophthalmology, Optics, and Ultrasound. StarFish’s expertise includes electronics, mechanical, human factors, usability, and software systems engineering. For more information, please visit www.starfishmedical.com.
Contact
Mike Camplin |mcamplin@starfishmedical.com |250.358.3537 x210