In 2017, Connor Tower, BS BME ’17 followed a unique pathway to his role at Olympus Surgical Technologies America (OSTA) in Southborough, MA. Before beginning his career, Connor (along with his MQP team) won the BME Provost’s MQP Award for the project: “Expandable Blades for Precision Veterinary Myringotomy”, advised by Professor Kristen Billiar, where one of the judges was Joe Doherty, former President of OSTA. Mr. Doherty, impressed with the project, encouraged Connor to apply for the rotational development program at OSTA, to which Connor was accepted and rotated between Research & Development, International Upstream Marketing and Strategy & Portfolio Management before beginning his current role in Global Market and Competitive Intelligence. He now works with global partners to design qualitative and quantitative studies for different user populations across sub-disciplines of Urology and spends his time analyzing the size and trends of Olympus’ addressable market, assessing the competitive landscape, and discovering what unmet user needs exist that could become development opportunities. Connor is currently enrolled in an MS of Engineering Management (MSEM) program which he expects to complete in 2021 and in his rare free time, he enjoys perfecting the science of homebrewing his own beer.
