Gwen Watanabe - Vice President
 
Gwen Watanabe is a serial entrepreneur serving as President & CEO at Hotspur Since March 2009. Prior to her time at Hotspur, Gwen served as Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Nellix Endovascular developing endografts in the AAA and TAA treatment space. Other early-stage companies that Gwen has been involved in include AneuRx (acquired by Medtronic) and Bacchus Vascular (acquired by Covidien). Gwen has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Jeff Krolik - Director, R&D
 
Jeff Krolik is a medical device entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience and 65 issued or filed patent applications. Before joining Hotspur in 2008, Jeff was Vice President of Research and Development at SquareOne, Inc. where he led the development of the BOSS Ostial Stent System from inception through its first human clinical use. Prior to that, Jeff served as the lead engineer on the FilterWire EX™ Embolic Protection System for Embolic Protection Inc., later acquired by Boston Scientific. Jeff also contributed to the development of the MIDCAB™ minimally invasive bypass system for Cardio Thoracic Systems, Inc. Jeff holds a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from San Jose State University.

Aurelio Valencia - Manufacturing and Operations Manager
 
Aurelio Valencia joined Hotspur Technologies Inc. in October 2009. Aurelio brings with him over 15 years of experience in the vascular interventional medical device business and has served various positions from Research Engineer to Manager of Operations and Logistics at companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. These Companies include Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI), Medtronic and Atrionix (a Johnson and Johnson Company). Prior to his employment at Hotspur, Mr.Valencia was a member of the founding team at Flowmedica (acquired by AngioDynamics, Inc.) where he was part of developing and manufacturing a novel durg delivery device to address acute kidney injury .

Ray Betelia - Senior Manager, Development
 
Ray Betelia joined Hotspur Technologies in September 2009 after having worked in Research & development at a number of minimally invasive medical invasive medical device startups. Ray brings with him extensive engineering experience from positions at Flexion Medical, NovoStent, LuMend, EndoTex & Guidant. Ray holds a B.S. in Industrial Technology from San Jose State University.