Dan Cole – General Partner (Spray Venture Partners) - Chairman

Dan Cole joined Spray Venture Partners at its founding in 1996, bringing twenty years of medical device operational experience to the firm. Dan has served on the boards of ten companies in the first Spray fund, including two that he started. Prior to joining Spray, Dan served as senior vice president and group president of Boston Scientific Corporation's vascular business, a $1.2 billion group including SCIMED (cardiology), Medi-tech (radiology), Meadox (vascular surgery), and EP Technologies (electro psychology). He was also responsible for BSC's rapidly growing international operations. Dan was previously president and chief operating officer of SCIMED Life Systems, a public company with revenues of $260 million in 1994 prior to the company's merger with Boston Scientific in 1995. He previously held a variety of executive and general management positions at Baxter Healthcare Divisions. He serves on the Board of Directors of Acorn Cardiovascular, Direct Flow Medical, Facet Solutions, Kolis Scientific, PneumRx and Thoratec Laboratories.

He earned a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Kansas, an M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States Navy Post-Graduate School, and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Rick Anderson, PTV Sciences

Rick Anderson was formerly company group chairman, Johnson & Johnson, and worldwide franchise chairman, Cordis Corporation. He also served as president of Cordis Corporation and was previously worldwide franchise vice president of Centocor, Inc., which merged with Johnson & Johnson in 1999. Rick was a key architect behind the launch of the world’s first drug-eluting stent: the CYPHER® Sirolimus-eluting Coronary Stent. This breakthrough innovation for the treatment of restenosis (reblockage) has been used to treat more than three million patients worldwide.

Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Rick served in senior leadership positions with other international healthcare and medical device companies. At Racal HealthCare, Inc., he was vice president, Global Marketing and responsible for respiratory devices and before that, he spent a decade with Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals and Allergan Pharmaceuticals in various U.S. and global sales, sales management, and marketing management roles. He is also a consultant member of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions and has worked within the industry to shape global education of interventional specialties.

Rick holds a B.B.A. in Marketing from Mississippi State University and has completed graduate level course work at Indiana University and Duke University. He served five years in the United States Army, where he obtained the rank of captain.

Jay Schmelter, RiverVest

Jay Schmelter is a managing director and co-founder of RiverVest. He focuses on company formation and venture investing in the medical device sector. Jay has extensive experience in life science venture capital, finance, and industry. Before co-founding RiverVest, he was a principal at Crescendo Ventures, a global venture capital fund, where he led investments for the firm’s life science division. At Crescendo, he was involved with numerous portfolio companies and founded TissueLink Medical. Prior to his transition to venture capital, Jay was a medical devices research analyst at Piper Jaffray, where his research coverage focused on cardiovascular-related medical device stocks. He was also a marketing manager for Medtronic, with responsibility for two successful product launches and the marketing activities of two of Medtronic’s U.S. cardiac surgery-related businesses.

He received an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in accounting from Michigan State University.

J. Greg Davis - President and Chief Executive Officer

Greg Davis is an experienced medical device executive with broad global and functional experience in finance, manufacturing, sales and general management. Prior to joining Tryton Medical, Greg was president of Guidant Japan with P&L responsibility for the company’s $225 million cardiovascular business. Prior to his work in Japan, Greg managed Guidant’s product portfolio in 13 Asian countries. He was also instrumental in the start up and management of an FDA-regulated, Class III manufacturing facility in Dorado, Puerto Rico.  

Greg started his career in various financial management roles with Cardiac Pacemakers Incorporated and Eli Lilly in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Greg holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Aaron V. Kaplan, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I.

Dr. Aaron V. Kaplan is Professor of Medicine and of Community & Family Medicine and Director, Dartmouth Device Development Symposia at Dartmouth Medical School and Director of Research, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. In addition to his clinical responsibilities, Dr. Kaplan supervises cardiology fellows, chairs the Dartmouth Device Development Symposia and lectures regularly at the Tuck School. Prior to joining the Dartmouth Faculty, Dr. Kaplan was director of Interventional Cardiology at the Palo Alto VA and served on the faculty at Stanford. Dr. Kaplan has more than 40 publications and is on the editorial board of Cardiac Catheterization and Intervention.

Dr. Kaplan has been an active medical device entrepreneur for more than 15 years and has been on the founding team of a number of venture-backed medical device companies including LocalMed and Perclose. In addition, Dr. Kaplan has consulted to NMT Medical, Guidant Corporation, Johnson & Johnson and was an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Three Arch Partners. Dr. Kaplan has authored 18 U.S. Patents.

He received a B.S. from Tufts University, M.D. at Wake Forest University, medical training at Northwestern University and cardiology training at Stanford University.