Starting at Poba Medical just two days after he graduated from NAU, our senior engineer Bryce Igo was one of the first employees that made up the beginning foundation of what our company is today. Starting as one of two employees, with a single machine in a shared lab, Bryce has had the privilege of witnessing and contributing to Poba’s tremendous growth over the short three years. The company now occupies a 7,500+ sq ft office, with over 10 balloon lines and 15+ employees. “The only thing that remains the same is the team's desire to continue to learn, provide high quality balloons, improve timelines, and provide good customer service” the senior engineer states.
Looking back, balloon design has been one of the many things that Bryce has learned while working at Poba. Working as a catheter engineer, Bryce has also been challenged to learn techniques such as extrusion and tooling design, in addition to developing more knowledge around the challenges of how a balloon is formed and how it will perform. The NAU alum states that he was able to take the engineering principles that he learned from school such as: mechanics of materials, material science, heat transfer, and manufacturing, to expand on his skills and knowledge of balloon development.
Bryce’s large amount of balloon knowledge and skills are a direct result of the demanding projects that Poba Medical seeks to fulfill every day to meet the unique needs of their customers. Poba’s CEO Dan Kasprzyk has always set high expectations for the company’s performance, which has contributed to a challenging work environment. This has forced employees such as Bryce to expand their capabilities and find ways to produce balloons with complex unique geometries and materials, high burst pressures, and specific compliance characteristics, including ultra-low or ultra-high compliant balloons.
Having experienced working for large corporate companies, Bryce knew that this was not what he was looking for in a long-term career. He chose to work at Poba because he was passionate about working in the medical device industry and intrigued by working for a small startup company. Working for a company who creates a culture where self-motivated individuals come to work ready to learn and challenge themselves to continue to improve the lives of their customers; Bryce quickly realized he had found his home. Bryce states, “having a challenging and open environment to try new things while being able to see the company grow to where it is today, is what makes it exciting to go to work every day.”