Omar Ford | Editor in Chief, MD+DI | Navigating Medtech Journalism, Storytelling in Healthcare, & Personal Growth

Omar Ford, Editor in Chief of MD+DI, shares his journey from small-town print journalism to covering medtech, and the steep learning curve that taught him how to find the real story behind press releases, FDA pathways, and industry trends. Omar explains how thinking like a “contemporary medtech historian” helps connect past events to present innovations, and why curiosity—and an unusually open, helpful industry—accelerated his growth. He reflects on defining leadership moments, imposter syndrome, and the mentors who shaped his style, plus memorable conversations from his Let’s Talk Medtech podcast.

 

Guest links: omar.ford@informa.com | https://www.mddionline.com/ 

Charity supported: March of Dimes

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen
Producer: Velentium Medical

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Episode 078 - Omar Ford

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm delighted to welcome as my guest Omar Ford. Omar is an experienced Editor in Chief, currently at MD+DI, with a demonstrated history of working in the medical device industry. Skilled in medical devices, technical writing, marketing, strategic planning, and marketing strategy, he also has a strong media and communication professional background with a bachelor's degree focused in journalism from the University of South Carolina, Columbia.

Well, hello, welcome. I'm so excited to have you here today. Thank you for being here, Omar.

[00:01:28] Omar Ford: Lindsey, I'm excited to be here as well. You know, I have been prepping for this all week, and then all the little notes and all the things I took down, I said, "You know what? I wanna give her the original experience," so I'm gonna chuck 'em to the side and we're just gonna do this off the top of my head. How's that?

[00:01:43] Lindsey Dinneen: That's perfect. My favorite.

[00:01:46] Omar Ford: Awesome. Awesome.

[00:01:48] Lindsey Dinneen: That's how conversations work in real life. I feel like this shouldn't be any different, so, great.

[00:01:53] Omar Ford: Agree. Agreed.

[00:01:54] Lindsey Dinneen: Love it. All right, so would you mind starting off by telling us just a little bit about yourself, your background, and what led you to medtech specifically?

[00:02:02] Omar Ford: Oh wow. So that is an interesting story what led me to medtech. But a little bit about myself first. So, I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2001 as a print journalism major. And, my goal was to go into newspapers, you know, I wanted to go into-- I wanted to be that next print journalist 'cause I had a face for radio, right? I had a face for print, you know, wasn't the, the, the broadcast type. And so I, I did small newspapers for a few years and then this magical thing called marriage happened. And, I was looking at the salary that I made as a print journalist, and it just, it, it just wasn't enough to sustain a family. So, was looking at branching into something else.

And back then, we had the, the, the classified ads in the newspaper where they would actually advertise jobs, and I and my wife pointed this one out to me and it was a, a job about it was a job for a company called AHC Media and they had a publication called Medical Device Daily, and that was around, I wanna say 2007.

And she said, "Why don't you try it? You know it the pay--" 'cause they advertised the pay there too back, back then-- she said, "The pay is much more than, you know, being, you know, a newspaper reporter. You can, you can leave that, that's something that you could do to, to support the family." And I said, "Yeah, yeah, why don't I try it?" And a lot, there were a lot of adjacencies, so I jumped on it and, you know, got hired and left the newspaper behind. And that was in 2007 and I've been with medtech ever since, so it's been an incredible journey. It's been one that you kinda, you know, once you jump in, there's like a, a steep learning curve, but if you manage to stay in for a few years, you can, you can really learn a lot about the industry.

[00:03:53] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Lots of questions. I'll start with that learning curve because I was just thinking about this.

[00:04:00] Omar Ford: Yes. Yes. Go ahead.

[00:04:01] Lindsey Dinneen: So, okay. So you go from, I might imagine a more generalist approach to all sorts of different topics, to...

[00:04:09] Omar Ford: mm-hmm.

[00:04:10] Lindsey Dinneen: ...a really crazy niche industry where somebody can say a full sentence and. If you're not from the industry, you're like, "Mm-hmm."

[00:04:18] Omar Ford: Yes.

[00:04:19] Lindsey Dinneen: So what was that like for you and how did you, how did you navigate that, that steep learning curve and your own personal growth so that you could, you know, really speak to the industry?

[00:04:32] Omar Ford: So going back to the head nod, "Um, mm-hmm," a lot of my interviews were like that at the very beginning. But I remember the Editor in Chief of, of Medical Device Daily. He's now deceased-- Don Long-- he pulled me to the side one day and he said, "Omar, each of these companies has a story. You want to be able to tell that story." You know, you look at it from a business sense, and then you drill down into the innovations. You know, when you get a press release from a company such as a Boston Scientific or an Abbott Laboratories, or a Medtronic, you wanna drill down in the press release and look at what the news is. But you also wanna look at the story that they've been telling up until now about that product or about that sector that they're in.

You know, if they're looking to get approval for a device, you know, was it easy for them to go through clinical trials? Was this something that bombed a couple times or that was rejected by FDA? Each company has a story about their innovation, right? And you look at the company as your sources, like your, like they're your county commissioners or they're your --I'm going back to my newspaper days-- or they're your board of education members. You know, each company has a personality like that. And you try to hone in on that and you look for those adjacencies and then you kinda fill things in as you go along.

The other thing that helps is traveling to some of the trade shows and talking to the people and meeting them face to face, because back when I started, we had this wonderful thing called a landline, a telephone, and we could call people and get messages, right? There were no teams calls or no Skype or anything like that, or, or Zoom. And in fact, I don't think they're Skype anymore. But you know, you didn't have that, so you just heard a person's voice, but when you met them face to face, when you talked about some of these innovations, when you saw how passionate they were or when you could read some of their body language or when you could say, "Hey, can you kind of take the time and talk to me about this," and make that personal connection, it helps you understand the science a little bit more. It helps you understand what they're trying to communicate a whole lot more.

And that kind of rounded out that steep learning curve. But I like to tell people all the time, when I first started, I didn't know a 510K from a PMA. You know, I struggled to explain that one time to our, our sales manager back when I was with AHC Media and Medical Device Daily. But if you can stay in this industry long enough and if you can you know, just focus long enough on the content material and have an understanding of the companies that you're, you're talking to and see them each having an individual story, you know, and, and also finding the conflict that the companies might have too, that helps round that, that, that steep learning curve down out a a whole lot. A whole lot.

[00:07:44] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. That's, that's great advice. And also something I was thinking about is the more that you get into the industry too, you know, curiosity solves so much, right?

[00:07:59] Omar Ford: Yes.

[00:07:59] Lindsey Dinneen: The more that you can just be curious and ask questions. And I've found-- and I'd be curious about your own experience with this-- but I found that this industry is extremely helpful. Like if you go with a genuine desire to learn and grow, people are like, "Great, how can I help you?"

[00:08:17] Omar Ford: Now, that is one thing that I will testify to and I will say was different from reporting, doing beat reporting because when I was working with the small newspapers, it was all about holding back information. It was all about, "I don't wanna talk to you about this." But this industry, when you talk to people, when you show a level of interest and the ability to understand, they will talk to you for days and they are very, very helpful. So that is ano--, I'm, I'm glad you brought that up because that is a, a another level that really, really helps to understand this industry a lot. Yeah.

[00:08:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love what you were talking about in regards to storytelling. You were talking about you know, sometimes I feel like press releases can, they're getting out information. There's obviously a really important point to them, but it sometimes can feel very dry and slightly just inhuman, I suppose.

[00:09:15] Omar Ford: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:15] Lindsey Dinneen: I love the fact that you were able to take what you saw, read a little bit between the lines and go, "Okay, I know there's a story here." Like you said, "What did you overcome? What are the challenges you're still facing?" Yeah. I'd just love if you speak a little bit more to that, that fine art of digging through and finding the gems.

[00:09:35] Omar Ford: A lot of that is being a contemporary MedTech historian and realizing that everything builds on something else, right? That there are different layers. I'll give you an example of this. Back in 2018, Boston Scientific was acquiring a lot of companies. I think they acquired like 10. That was the trend. And they bought a lot of different companies in a lot of different areas and the easy story was, "Boston Scientific is on a spending spree. Look at what they're doing, look at what they're doing." And that was the easy part of it.

But what happened to Boston Scientific before? What happened to them when they acquired Guided back in 2006 and that was heralded as one of the worst acquisitions ever. You, as a writer, as a reporter, as a journalist, when all of this is happening in 2018, I'm able to go back and say, "Wait a minute, this is a far cry from where the company was a few years ago," because there wasn't as much information. You know, they weren't as talkative as they used to be, as they are now.

You know, a lot wasn't communicated, but when you go back and, and, and you, you look at where they were and then you look at where they are now. That is a great story and that's how you can read between the lines. And you can see those connections. Okay. They're really, they're really building up their electrophysiology space, right? You know, they're building up their cardiovascular offerings. This is something that was perhaps heard or tainted during the acquisition in the fallout from it.

So let me draw back from those past stories, make some connections, see the adjacencies, see the parallels, create a new piece of content from that, that really communicates the story of what's really going on with Boston Scientific. So it's being able to look to the past, realizing that things don't happen in a vacuum, and also to, to work on the trends, to look ahead at how the trends will develop and are developing.

[00:11:51] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that, and especially love the term contemporary historian. I was just giggling to myself about how wonderful that is. Okay, so I'm all right. So going back to when you were growing up, could you have imagined yourself where you are now? Would, were you always interested in writing and journalism?

[00:12:11] Omar Ford: Oh gosh, you, you're gonna ask me about growing up? Oh God. Oh. So I, I, I, to answer your question, no. No. I am very blessed to be in this position. I never imagined myself here. I was a poor kid growing up in rural South Carolina. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a Vietnam veteran who became an educator. I'm saying that for a reason. Read between the lines. He was, he was tough. And, but my mom always wanted something better for me, right? And my dad, he was just sports and the news. He didn't watch any movie, I don't think, for as long as he lived. I think the only movie we saw together was "Lean On Me" with Morgan Freeman is is Joe Clark. That's the only movie that my whole family watched. He was just. That's all he, he did.

And I wanted to impress him, and I wanted to be able to you know, he, he wanted an athlete and that's clearly not what I was back then. But he I, I just wanted to impress him. And I remember he would sit down, he would watch "Crossfire." It was, that came on, I believe, 7:30 on CNN. Pat Buchanan, he was a host, I can't remember the other host, and he would watch "60 Minutes" and then he'd watch the local news with Dan Rather on CBS, that that's all he watched. And he would read the newspaper. It'd come out Mondays and Thursdays.

And so I, I wanted to be a journalist to impress him. So I got on the school newspaper, you know, I found out that I had a gift of not necessarily talking, but I had a gift of listening to people and being able to, to kind of relate to, to relate their stories of what they were telling me in writing. So I was able to, to write down what people told me in a sense.

And, so if you would've asked me, would I be editor in chief of MD+DI or, or anything like that growing up, no. That wasn't my intention. I just wanted to be, I just wanted to impress my dad. I just wanted to be a a, you know, a good reporter and thankfully he, while he didn't live to see me be Editor in Chief, he did see me become Managing Editor of MD+DI, and my mom actually lived to see me become Editor in Chief and, you know, she was I remember when I told her and she was like, super, super proud. So, yeah, yeah. But no, I couldn't have imagined that me a kid growing up in a, in a, in rural South Carolina in a trailer? No, no, no.

[00:14:56] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. Thank you for sharing that story. That's really powerful. And I actually love how inspirational it is too. You know, you, of course you have to start somewhere and you're working your way up and look where you are now. It's incredible. And now you, you have been there now eight years, is that correct?

[00:15:13] Omar Ford: Yes, I've been with in, with MD+DI for eight years now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going back. Well, yes, I'm thinking back. Yeah. Yeah. I have to think about that. And I've been Editor, Editor in Chief, I think I took over in of 2022. Yeah. April of 2022. Yeah. So yeah. Wow. My hair was a whole lot darker; it didn't have gray streaks when I started.

[00:15:40] Lindsey Dinneen: What a journey. Oh, that's so cool. Congrats. Yeah, so as you've been a journalist, but maybe specifically within medical device, what are some interviews that kind of really stand out that you just for their impact or how they touched you or how they touched others?

[00:16:00] Omar Ford: I would say some of my best interviews I did on the podcast, Let's Talk Medtech, because I could finally kinda let-- I could let my hair down and my guests could let their hair down as well, and we could just, we could just talk and just, it, it would it, we could just be open and transparent. And sometimes that doesn't always happen when you're doing an interview. Sometimes some people are reading from the script. Sometimes people are guarded. Sometimes people like to use the old, "Okay, I know I said that, but. That was off the record. Please don't use it."

You know, sometimes that happens, but to answer your question, some of my best interviews have been with Marissa Fayer. She is CEO of DeepLook Medical and HERhealthEQ. In fact, we just did a podcast with her. It, it's not even fair to call that an interview because it's just like two old friends talking and our banter is going back and forth and I'm like, "Yeah, I saw some pictures of you, you know, on Facebook. You were on this trip. You were on this trip." You said, "Oh, Facebook is still a thing. I just put everything in Instagram so it funnels out. What you trying to call me old? Marissa, are you trying to say that that old, old people use Facebook?" "No, no, no. I'm not saying that."

And, and just that. And then we leap into AI and how AI is really helping the cause of women's health right now and how it's helping with imaging and how it won't replace the radiologist or the physician, but it will give them an extra tool. But you see how comfortable that transition is. We're able to have those talks. We're able to have those conversations. And it's not stiff, you know, it's, it's just like. It's not like we're reading from a paper or we are just trying to be super, super guarded. So Marissa's a good person that I that I talked to.

Chris Toth-- he's the CEO of Vantive-- and he had the most energy and enthusiasm about, about his job and his position, and it was just smooth and we, we interviewed him for an episode of Let's Talk Medtech, and it was just incredible. He, he, he really opened up about the company. He talked about some of the goals and it was refreshing to see a CEO, you know, have that type of discussion you know, have those discussion points. So those were some of the most memorable interviews that I've had in, in recent, in recent months.

[00:18:29] Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Thank you for sharing those. That's, that's fun. Now I'm gonna have to go and listen to them. Marissa was one of my first guests, and I couldn't agree more that the conversation was so just easy and natural and she's got such cool things to talk about.

[00:18:43] Omar Ford: Yes, yes.

[00:18:45] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So one thing I noticed about your LinkedIn was it seems like you are very fond of learning because you are continually taking courses, maybe on and off LinkedIn, but I was looking through the laundry list of, of amazing courses you've taken, and I was like, "That is impressive." So I'm curious if you could talk about that.

[00:19:06] Omar Ford: Oh gosh. Well, I look at some of the, the most interesting courses that I can find. And one of the things that I've been looking at is just artificial intelligence and generative AI. How to best use that, how to best write prompts, what are some of the pitfalls? Just how to, for lack of a better term, master it or understand it a little bit more because I understand that content is changing and generative AI is a huge driver of that. I don't fear change. I want to change. It's just, I don't know where change is going to, to, I, I don't know what that looks like now because we're in the middle of it, you know?

Something similarly happened to me back in 2006, I wanna say, when Google kind of came on the scene and was taking newspapers and, and publishing the entire newspaper online, and you could look at it for free. And I was like, "This isn't a sustainable model. I need to get out of this and I'm barely making, I'm barely making enough to get by. I need to leave, but what do I need to to go to?" And that was the B2B experience that was in medtech.

And that was where it was more focused. It was more targeted. There was a paywall. The, the sales metrics were a whole lot different. It wasn't necessarily about buying an ad because someone is looking at the at the site or looking at your story or the ad impressions, but it was more, "Who's going to buy in for this gated content or this content behind a paywall that specifically talks to them, not everybody." I think that's an issue that newspapers had back then. They tried to be something for, for everyone and I don't think that turned out to, to work too well for them. But I just totally went off the cuff and went off line and just talked about everything except answering your question, so.

[00:21:03] Lindsey Dinneen: That is, it's not, you're awesome. I absolutely love it. Okay, so, oh, this is what I wanted to ask. So as you have-- especially with the medical device side of things-- as you have grown in your journalist career, are there any moments that really stand out to you as just affirming to you that, "Wow, I am in the right place at the right time?"

[00:21:32] Omar Ford: Yeah. Yeah. And one happened fairly recently and it happened at West. I was coming out of, from the, the showroom floor at, in the Anaheim Conference Center and I had my Informa name tag on and I had my suit and one of the, the guys at the door-- he was a, a, a young person of color-- and he came up to me and he said, "Man, I want to be just like you when I grow up." And I, I brought him in and I gave him a hug and I couldn't say anything and. I walked up those winding stairs. I didn't take the escalator. You, you know what I'm talking about. I didn't take the, I walked up those winding stairs and by the time I got upstairs, I was in tears. And that was validation that, "Hey, you're supposed to be here." If you know, if not, for just that one moment where that young man was able to see me and make a connection. And that was really, that was really emotional for me.

And, again, I grew up with a dad that was a Vietnam veteran. Emotions weren't allowed, so you had to hold it in, but that was a point I just, I, that was just an emotional moment for me, and it said, "Yeah, you're, you're supposed to be here. You're all right, Omar. You're supposed to be here." Because I think when you're in leadership, I think you struggle with that, especially coming into it, right? You, you have, well, for me, I had imposter syndrome. I, I just, I, "Why does anybody wanna follow me? Am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong?" Oh my gosh. And, and also I, I wanted to be the person that always got all the accolades or that, because I thought that that was doing a good job.

And that's not what leadership is. You, you will get some of those accolades, but your accolades are to build someone else up so that they can get, so that they can get the spotlight and so that they can become leaders in their own right. So you wanna grow your professionals that are under you. That was the challenge for me at first because I was a great soldier and I was a great person who could roll up their sleeves and I would jump headfirst into it and I would, I would work and knock out and tackle the problem, but asking someone else to do it-- you know, coming up with a strategy to do it was easy too, but just enforcing it, having someone else to do it, that was the tough part for me. That's what I struggled with.

And so bringing back to when you, when you were talking about that defining moment, that moment when that young man, you know, when I embraced that young man, when I hugged him, that was saying, "Omar, you're supposed to be here." And that meant a lot to me, so, yeah.

[00:24:29] Lindsey Dinneen: That's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. Oh, I, yes, I understand the imposter syndrome for sure. And, you know, and, and you know, I recently, as you know, had the opportunity to host the Leadership Summit at MD&M West, which was really an amazing experience. And there were moments-- I remember I was, I was checking out the space ahead of time, you know, looking to see what it's all gonna be set up as. And I had this moment of like, "You don't, you don't deserve to be here." And like that just very intrusive thought, just came into my head and I just said, "No, that's not true. That's, it's, it's not true. I've worked hard to be where I am apparently some people care what I have to say."

Not everyone, I'm sure, that's a thousand percent fine, but it was just such an interesting, it, it, it's just you keep having to have these moments, I feel like, of sometimes, sometimes outside validation from somebody who looks up to you like that, that young man, and just to say, "Yeah, I'm, I'm okay to be here. In fact, I'm, I deserve to be here. I'm supposed to be here. I make a difference. I, at least I try."

[00:25:40] Omar Ford: Yes, it, it's hard because you're, you know, you're trying to be humble, but you're also coming against all of these different, these different things in your role. You know, you have people above you, you have people below you. You're kinda like the sandwich generation when it comes to, to, to leadership in your professional career. And you're not necessarily-- I don't wanna say fighting against them. I don't want to say that-- but you're, you're giving up. You're giving down at the same time, you know, you, you're, you know, you're talking to, to your management team, to your managers, and you're giving them information and you're serving their needs, but you're also serving the needs of, of the people that work under you. You're giving them support

And so, if you don't have anything to constantly fill you up, it can be it, I don't wanna say draining, that's not the word, but it can take a lot out of you. So you, you, you sometimes don't see the role that you play because you're, you're giving both ways and, you know, I was I, I'll, I'll tell you, I had an amazing leader. She was a great leader, because when I look at bosses, I look at people who tell you, "Okay, I want you to do this. I want you to do this, I want you to do that." All they wanna do is get the task done and go home. That's what I see as a boss.

But a leader will actually sow into you, will actually nurture you, will actually tell you right from wrong and will feel like they have a personal responsibility or stake, or stake, I'd say in your growth, right. And that person for me was Daphne Allen. She was my predecessor. She's now Editor in Chief of Design News. It's a sister publication to MD+DI. And I can always remember she was firm and assertive and, but in a almost nurturing way. And if you came up with an idea that didn't quite jive right, she would talk to you, she would say, "Well, maybe we could look at it this way."

It would validate the idea, but tell you you're not quite on the right path, but show that she's willing to help you get on the right path all in one blow. And that was so incredible. And I can remember at West, I, I, I pulled her aside, 'cause every time I see her, I talk to her and I tell her, "You've been such a great inspiration for me, you've, I, I'm. I'm forever thankful for you. I'd say the only bad thing is that you're, you're no longer my manager. That's the only bad thing that I have to say."

But she just taught me a leadership style. You don't have to yell and scream to get your point across. You don't have to be nasty. You can be assertive and you can give support while being assertive. I think that's something that is missed in in a lot of roles. Just, "Hey, Omar, you, you might've done this a way that we didn't need to do it. But here's how we get back on track to do it, and I want you to think about what you did over here and how we can improve, improve upon it."

So it, it was just, it, it, it's just those conversations that I had with her that were, you know, I mean, she really stands out to me as, as one of the best leaders that I've had. And there, there are quite a few more that I could mention. But definitely Daphne Allen. I owe her so much and I'm so thankful to have met her. She's just an amazing person.

[00:29:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Well, shout out to Daphne.

[00:29:27] Omar Ford: Yes, yes, yes.

[00:29:30] Lindsey Dinneen: Excellent. Oh, that's, that's wonderful. I love hearing stories of really great leaders who make an impact because it does matter so much in your experience at work just as a whole, but just also your personal and professional growth. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. So, all right, pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun.

[00:29:51] Omar Ford: Sure. Sure.

[00:29:52] Lindsey Dinneen: Imagine you are to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It can be within your industry, but it doesn't have to be. What would you teach?

[00:30:03] Omar Ford: Hmm. A million dollars to teach anything. Oh gosh. I, you know what? I would teach really common sense, old school journalism. I would do that. I think that there are a lot of things that have been lost in journalism over the years and that is one thing that I would teach, not necessarily the writing aspect of it but just how to relate to people, how to talk to people you know, how to just be in a position where you can have discussions with, with a person.

We have so many people nowadays that don't even know how to talk on a telephone. They don't know how to have a phone conversation. And I think that that is one of the basics for journalism, right? You gotta be able to pick up that phone or hop on that Teams call and have a conversation with someone. I, I remember a few years ago we had a, a journalist and this person was, this person struggled with talking to people on the phone or doing those cold calls. And I said, "You know, you gotta be able to breach that and you gotta be able to, to, to try and at least make that connection."

And there are tips that you can do to, to really get that information out there to, to really make connections with people, you know, you can-- subtle things that you can do, but if you gave me a million dollars, I would yeah, that's what I would do. I would teach just common core principles of journalism.

[00:31:39] Lindsey Dinneen: I love it. Sounds like a great course. All right. How do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world?

[00:31:48] Omar Ford: Oh gosh. I would say as a good husband and a good father. Those are two things that are really important to me, but I would love to be just a go out as a good husband and a good father. That's, that's ultimately what I wanna be.

[00:32:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Wonderful. All right, and then final question. What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:32:14] Omar Ford: Oh goodness. What's one thing that makes me smile or, oh gosh. I will say this. My youngest daughter, my youngest daughter, Emily, and she, we named her after my mom. She was a total surprise to us. We're in, well, I will tell my age. I am 47 years old and she is now two. So do the math. My other children are like in their teens. And Emily makes me smile because, you know, we didn't know that my wife was pregnant at the time. We just, and then when we found out she was pregnant at 21 weeks-- yeah. Yeah. Yes, yes. When we found out she was pregnant, we didn't even want to we didn't know if Emily would survive. We, we didn't. She spent like 10 weeks in the NICU and now she is a big, healthy toddler who has caused a lot of this to turn a lot grayer, but she makes me smile each time I see her. You know, she reminds me of her grandmother, my mom, and she reminds me that miracles can happen. So, yes.

[00:33:29] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, I love that. What a beautiful answer. Well, Omar, this has been an absolutely amazing interview and I am so very thankful for your time. Thanks for just sharing a little bit of your afternoon with me, and thank you so much for everything you're doing to change lives for a better world. Really appreciate it.

[00:33:48] Omar Ford: Thank you. Thank you, and thanks for having me on and we've gotta have you on Let's Talk Medtech.

[00:33:52] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, let's do it. I would love that.

[00:33:55] Omar Ford: Awesome.

[00:33:56] Lindsey Dinneen: Well, thanks again.

[00:33:59] Dan Purvis: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium Medical. Velentium Medical is a full service CDMO, serving medtech clients worldwide to securely design, manufacture, and test class two and class three medical devices. Velentium Medical's four units include research and development-- pairing electronic and mechanical design, embedded firmware, mobile app development, and cloud systems with the human factor studies and systems engineering necessary to streamline medical device regulatory approval; contract manufacturing-- building medical products at the prototype, clinical, and commercial levels in the US, as well as in low cost regions in 1345 certified and FDA registered Class VII clean rooms; cybersecurity-- generating the 12 cybersecurity design artifacts required for FDA submission; and automated test systems, assuring that every device produced is exactly the same as the device that was approved. Visit VelentiumMedical.com to explore how we can work together to change lives for a better world.