StarFish Honours for Innovation and Contributions

VICTORIA, British Columbia and TORONTO, Ontario, December 14, 2021 – Source: StarFish Medical

The 2021 StarFish Group honours for outstanding contributions to company success were presented to Ariana Wilson, Kevin Meric, Alex Gunson and Brad Kirk at holiday parties in Victoria (December 11) and Toronto (December 4). Nominations are submitted by company employees and cite a variety of achievements and outstanding performance for each award.

CEO and Founder, Scott Phillips summarizes the structure and intent of the annual program, “It’s important to recognize innovation. But it is also important to recognize the value and support people give to others that enables innovation. Our annual awards and their recipients are a perfect reflection of what we are trying to accomplish at StarFish.”

Chris Denny Memorial Award for Innovation

Chris Denny was a longstanding high innovator in our company who had a huge impact on our success. He passed away a few years back. Each year employees nominate colleagues who have immersed themselves deeply in a technical problem to find a brilliant solution to the design challenge, as-stated, or more deeply.

StarFish Honours for Innovation and ContributionsAriana Wilson and Scott Phillips

Ariana Wilson, Junior Systems Engineer, received the Chris Denny Memorial Award for Innovation award for her work on a component that must be visible on a MRI scan.

“Anyone who has worked on MR opaque instruments knows that it is very difficult to achieve this without using some sort of liquid based tracer such as Gadolinium laced saline, the current gold standard. Ariana discovered a material that claimed to be MR visible, greatly simplifying the manufacturing process as well as streamlining the usability of the device.”

Keep Calm and Carry On

The Keep Calm and Carry On award honours an employee who rises to challenging times with compassion and grace, making employees, customers, and leadership feel more confident, positive, and well looked after.

Brad Kirk

Brad Kirk, IT Service Manager, received the Keep Calm and Carry On award for his “unwavering nerve and diligence taking over for a departing IS/IT Director weeks after joining StarFish and then spear heading a rapid transition to a new version of SharePoint.”

Unable to attend the award ceremony, Brad sent an email message to employees after learning the news, “…this is an achievement for the entire IS/IT team. There’s no question we had a very ‘trying’ year, but in a selfish way these are all great opportunities for our team to grow and learn from. Each member took on different roles as we made our way through these challenges and came out as a better version of themselves personally and professionally, and that’s what it’s all about. If the perception was that I seemed calm, it’s because of the extraordinary efforts of the team that stands beside me.”

Reach for the Stars

The Reach for the Stars award honours an employee whose process, innovation or idea has helped StarFish and/or our clients get better.

Alexander Gunson

Alexander Gunson, Manufacturing Engineer, received the Reach for the Stars award for “being like a guiding star, showing Starfish the way to be as good as it can possibly be since he started. He’s got that unique combination of prior experience, drive, stick-with-it-ness, and teamwork to make things happen. I’m looking forward to seeing how StarFish looks after a few years of having Alex on the team.”

Above and Beyond

The Above and Beyond award is presented to a Toronto team member who has gone beyond their roles and responsibilities to make a StarFish project a success.

Kevin Meric

Kevin Meric, Industrial Designer, received the Above and Beyond award with two nominations:

“During the past year Kevin has contributed quality ID work on seven important projects. Even when pushed outside of his comfort zone, he will step up and take on tasks without complaint. In the past year, he has grown his talent set and taken on new challenges like Instructions for Use (IFU) preparation, labelling, packaging.

After an innovative brainstorming session, Kevin quickly provided a meaningful and clever clip solution very rapidly by conceptualizing, creating a CAD of the idea, then prototyping it on the Rapid Prototyping machine in Toronto and presenting it for evaluation, all within a mere couple hours of inception. Speed and ingenuity!

He can be counted on to provide talent and personality to anything he does and help to ensure that design intent is represented on any project he works on.”

About StarFish Medical

Empowering Medtech Innovation ™

StarFish Medical provides award-winning design, development, commercialization, and flexible manufacturing outsourcing services —100% dedicated to the medical device and life science marketplace. StarFish Medical partners with innovative companies to create and manufacture breakthrough products for a full range of medical specialty areas including: Digital Health, Cardiovascular, Neurology, Urology, Gastroenterology, Otology, Ophthalmology, and In-Vitro Diagnostics.

StarFish Medical’s technical expertise includes electronics, mechanical, software/firmware systems engineering, in addition to industrial design and human factors. Regulatory Affairs (RA) and Quality Assurance (QA) consultants at StarFish Medical provide regulatory assistance for FDA, CE Mark and Health Canada submissions. Services include QA support for setting up QMS for start-up companies with implementation at the client’s site, and assisting with ISO 13485 certification audits.

For media inquiries:

Mike Camplin, VP, Marketing, StarFish Medical,  250.388.3537 x210  mcamplin@starfishmedical.com

Related Link: www.starfishmedical.com