If you want to know just how far Rochester’s entrepreneurial community has come in a few short years, ask Jamie Sundsbak.
As a Senior Program Coordinator at the Mayo Clinic and the founder of BioAM, a meet-up group for bio-business startups in southern Minnesota, Sundsbak says Rochester has “come a long way.”
Jamie Sundsbak
“I know that many people don’t see that, but for those of us in the trenches, it has been a monumental shift,” Sundsbak told Destination Medical Center in a recent interview. “I have worked with fantastic people from all over the city who share a fantastic entrepreneurial vision and who have worked tirelessly to expand our ecosystem.”
Chicago-based entrepreneur Troy Henikoff has a go-to recipe for fostering communities that supports innovation.
Ingredients include investors, co-working spaces for collaboration, and an inclusive attitude.
Troy Henikoff
Henikoff should know. He is the Managing Director for TechStars Chicago, an organization that is part of a global entrepreneurial network helping people with good ideas start a business by giving them access to accelerators, mentors, and capital.
In fact, Techstars already has a presence in Rochester, allowing health care-oriented entrepreneurs who have been through the program to spend several weeks in the city exploring business opportunities with the Mayo Clinic.
A diverse economic landscape is paramount to a community’s growth and long-term success. It is also integral to the DMC mission.
Troy Henikoff
Troy Henikoff is the managing director of Techstars Chicago, a global ecosystem that helps entrepreneurs build great businesses. But Troy’s entrepreneurial involvement doesn’t stop there. Henikoff is a force in Chicago’s startup community and widely recognized as an expert in entrepreneurship – both from an academic and an industry perspective.
A cornerstone of the Destination Medical Center plan is to position Rochester as a leader in the biotechnology and medical technology fields. The development of Discovery Square – a sub-district dedicated to advancing game-changing ideas in patient care – is a critical step in reaching this goal.
The groundwork is already there. Medical innovators have long flocked to Rochester to collaborate with the Mayo Clinic on new technologies that are making health care better and more efficient.
Emily Benner
Preventice Solutions is among the companies that saw promise in collaboration early on. Emily Benner, who is Preventice’s Senior Vice President of Research and Development, sat down with DMC to talk about how her company is changing the way doctors care for cardiac patients, and what Discovery Square means for innovators.
Rochester’s med-tech business community is getting a national boost.
Earlier this week, Greater MSP – an economic development agency in the Twin Cities – announced the Minnesota Medical Manufacturing Partnership, giving medical manufacturers working in Rochester and in Minnesota access to federal agencies that coordinate $1 billion in economic development assistance.
Rochester is in one of 24 regions selected by the federal government as part of a nationwide effort to reignite manufacturing.
Destination Medical Center Executive Director Lisa Clarke said the partnership will help transform Rochester’s med-tech community in the Discovery Square Subdistrict and our region.
With DMC efforts like Discovery Square intended to help launch new startups and grow existing ventures, enhancing the diversity of the entrepreneurial landscape for the region will help drive growth and ensure that we attract and retain professionals of all ages.
The resume of Rochester-based entrepreneur Tori Utley reads like it belongs to a seasoned veteran of Silicon Valley: mobile app enthusiast, tech start-up founder, and non-profit leader are all on her list of accomplishments.
But at 23, Utley has just started her career. You can catch her presenting at TEDx ZumbroRiver on May 5, but if you want to learn more about her in the meantime, read on.
When Florida native Francisco Corripio started coming to Rochester for medical treatment six years ago, opening a restaurant was the furthest thing from the long-time banker’s mind.
Francisco Corripio
When Corripio learned that his medical treatment would be more extensive, he and his wife relocated to Rochester permanently. Last year, Corripio, along with members of his family, opened Francisco’s Cuban Café in the First Avenue Food Court on the skyway level of the 100 First Avenue Building in the Heart of the City. For Corripio, the café, which serves everything from fried plantains to Cuban sandwiches, was both a business venture and a personal necessity.
This weekend, like millions of others, Rochester entrepreneur Mike Rolih will tune in to watch the Super Bowl, but he will likely be watching through the eyes of an inventor who has found a way to make the game of football better for players and coaches.
Mike Rolih has recognized and embraced the entrepreneurial landscape of Rochester and found the community to be very receptive to medical and non-medical ventures. Rochester is, without question, a community focused on health and wellness, but a diverse business landscape is paramount to a strong and fruitful community. Startup companies like GoRout, represent the entrepreneur spirit in Rochester and the vision of DMC.
The mission of the Destination Medical Center (DMC) initiative is to attract people, investment, and jobs to America’s City for Health and support the economic growth of Minnesota, its bioscience sector, and beyond.
Local musician, prosthetist, and owner/founder of Limb Lab, Brandon Sampson sits down with DMC to answer some questions about his passion for helping people with prosthetic devices return to living life and embracing their “wearable art.” His story is just one of many in our community that align with the DMC vision to provide the ideal patient, companion, visitor, and community member experience.
It’s like I went to sleep and woke up 8 years later. Time flies, especially in a place that is experiencing as much growth and opportunity as Rochester.
I still catch myself staring at our little downtown skyline and feeling a surge of happiness and pride as I gaze upon the iconic Kahler Hotel Sign. I have called Rochester home since 2005, but regardless of days, weeks, or years, in my heart, Rochester has always felt like home.
Before I moved here, I lived in big and small cities in Texas, California, Virginia, South Carolina and New Mexico. While I enjoyed living in those states, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Growing up as an impoverished first-generation Mexican-American, I always dreamed of working downtown, owning my own business and being actively part of the community. These things didn’t seem like a possibility for a long time until I moved to Rochester.
What makes Rochester so special for me is its culture. A culture that is unique and somewhat difficult to define due to its vacillating characteristics between small town and big city. In my opinion, this city consists of mostly highly educated and family-oriented people of diverse backgrounds who are extremely generous, caring and accessible. As I write this, I think of the hospitality and friendship so many members of this community have extended to me, a complete stranger at one point. One particular experience stands out where Mayo’s CEO treated me as an honored guest and gave me a tour of his house after responding to a service call because his stereo system wasn’t working. Another stand-out experience was the enthusiasm my SCORE business advisor showed me the first time we met about launching my own business. Undeniably, this city is made up of great people and it has proven itself to be a perfect environment for me.
During my time here, I have accomplished a lot. I own a downtown home technology business, Smart Home Innovations & Engineering, Inc. (SHINE), volunteer weekly performing hand massages for chemo patients at Mayo, and have an active role marketing Rochester’s Downtown. Fortunately, these accomplishments are about as good as I imagined them 25 years ago, but it would not have been possible without this city and the people here.
So how does all of this tie into DMC? Well, eight years ago, I knew in my gut that Rochester was the place to achieve my childhood dreams. Today, at the beginning of the DMC initiative, I have the same feeling and believe Rochester will be the catalyst to fulfill my adult life goals well into my golden years. My primary goal now is to grow the business by sharing my passion for home technology. Currently at SHINE, we offer home technology systems centered on entertainment and convenience such as home theaters, automation and whole house audio systems. However, since the introduction of the DMC, I have started thinking about home technology a little differently. I believe that home technology has a real future in healthcare at a large scale here in Rochester because of the DMC. Healthcare home technology has been around for sometime, but has had little impact to date. I believe DMC can change that. It’s difficult to know exactly what this will look like at this time, but I envision a DMC patient visiting with me requesting that we design, install or wire his home for latest personal health care devices/applications due to their treatment at Mayo.
Dan Aguilar is a Rochester business owner and an active community volunteer.
What are your hopes for the future of Rochester? What entrepreneurial opportunities do you see as DMC moves forward? Share your comments below.
he resume of Rochester-based entrepreneur 
