Carl Simpson M.S. ’72, MBA ’79 is a board member of Uptake Medical, a company founded to help address the problem of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease worldwide. Simpson has worked in the medical/medical device arena for over 40 years. He supported his way through undergraduate school working as an x-ray technician at El Camino Hospital. In addition, he supported his way through graduate school working at Stanford in cardiovascular medicine. After graduate school and a short period working for Hewlett-Packard’s medical business group, Simpson began an unanticipated excursion into becoming a medical device entrepreneur. With John Simpson, MD, PhD, and Ray Williams, Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS) was formulated and was Carl Simpson’s first entrepreneurial effort. The company was sold to Lilly in 1984 and spun-off into Guidant in 1994. ACS became the University of Medical Devices for Silicon Valley, giving birth to over 100 medical devices companies. Recently Guidant has been sold to Boston Scientific and Abbott Vascular. For Simpson, ACS created the experience, motivation, and entrepreneurial drive to launch into a career of working with other entrepreneurs in establishing over 16 medical device companies. Simpson has been on the board of multiple medical device companies and worked with Versant Ventures for four years learning the VC business and assisting them in defining new companies for future investments.