Keynote Speaker Art Coury Reflects on Excellence in Surfaces Science Award Winner

摘要

Certain people we know remain amazing to us for their energy and achievements. Kenneth B. Stokes, my colleague and friend for 43 years, is such a person to me. We met when I started my first job at General Mills Chemicals, Inc. in 1965. Ken was an experienced polymer scientist, and I was a rookie organic chemist trying to learn polymers. We overlapped and collaborated there for some five years, and, when he left for Medtronic in 1970, I inherited all of his projects. We came together in 1976 when I joined Medtronic. By then, he had established himself as their premier polymer scientist and Director of Leads Research and Engineering. New technologies emanating from his ideas, teams and collaborators include the first tined and screw-in endocardial lead devices, the first implant use of thermoplastic poly-urethanes and the first steroid-eluting pacemaker lead tips, among others.