The Foundry^® Management

Hanson S. Gifford, III
President & CEO
The Foundry, Inc.

Biography/Professional Profile
Since 1998, Mr. Gifford has led The Foundry in all of its activities. These include the invention, identification and development of new technologies, the formation, financing, and staffing of new companies, and ongoing support of the new ventures as a board member.

Prior to The Foundry, Mr. Gifford was Vice President of Research and Development at Heartport, Inc. From 1993-1998, he built and led a 62-person team developing a wide variety of novel devices and procedures for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery that were instrumental in the company's successful public offering in 1996.

In 1992, Mr. Gifford co-founded and served as managing director of Bavaria Medizin Technologie, GmbH, establishing a German source for innovation and production of catheters for Interventional Cardiology. In 1990, Mr. Gifford served as President of Cardiovascular Therapeutic Technologies, Inc. which he founded with John B. Simpson, Ph.D., MD. CTT, which developed innovative local drug delivery catheters, was acquired by Eli Lilly in 1991. From 1985-1990, Mr. Gifford worked at Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI), where he served in various Engineering, Clinical Research and Marketing capacities. Before joining DVI, Hanson worked in an engineering role at Oximetrix, Inc.

Mr. Gifford is a co-inventor on over 90 issued U.S. patents and more than 130 pending US patents. He earned his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. Mr. Gifford serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Ardian, Inc. and ForSight Labs. He is a Director of Cierra, Concentric Medical, Emphasys Medical, Evalve, The Foundry, and Transcend Medical.