G. Lawrence Thatcher is the founder and president of TESco Associates Inc. with more than 40 years’ experience in the medical device industry, focusing on bioabsorbable polymer processing and the development of toughened bioabsorbable systems and bioabsorbable composites. He has been active in the material selection and development of absorbable medical devices from concept to clinical use since 1986 and was recognized by MDDI as one of a hundred notables in the medical device industry in June 2008. He taught eight years at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and has served ISO on a technical committee for Absorbables. He is the inventor/co-inventor of several medical device and absorbable material patents. Some of his publications include “OrbusNeich fully absorbable coronary stent platform incorporating dual partitioned coatings” in Euro Intervention, and contributing author to Polymers for Vascular and Urogenital Applications published by CRC Press, and Degradable Polymers for Skeletal Implants published by Nova Science. A couple of his most recent invited presentations were “Absorbable Product Realization and the Role of Standards” to ASTM’s Committee F04 Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices, and to the National Academies of Engineering, Science and Medicine BEMA roundtable “Issues and Opportunities Regarding the Availability of Biomaterials and Services for the Medical Device Industry.”