MicroCHIPS, Inc. is pioneering the next generation of implantable drug delivery and biosensing devices for use in the pharmaceutical and patient monitoring markets. Their proprietary reservoir technologies include both active and passive forms and provide numerous product opportunities for their partners.

When MicroCHIPS, a developer of implantable medical devices, needed a vice president of research and development, it was looking at a very select field of candidates.

"Our technology platform allows us to do work in devices as well as in drug-device combinations for drug delivery," explains MicroCHIPS CEO John Santini. "Typically, that would require two different individuals with different skill sets. But we didn’t have that luxury. We needed someone who could get their head around all of it... someone with an incredibly strong skill set and knowledge base in devices, who also had the creativity and flexibility to work with drug delivery products. So it was a fairly tall order."

Santini was already acquainted with J. Robert Scott Managing Director Bruce R. Rychlik. Both individuals were involved in the Convergence Forum life sciences leadership conference that JRS sponsored. But before approaching Bruce, Santini needed to consult with his colleagues.

"One particular colleague had a pretty low opinion of search firms in general," Santini chuckles. The colleague gave Santini an earful on most firms’ "start-stop" approach; describing how they’ll pull a few candidates from an existing pool, then stop looking until the client rejects them all.

But then the colleague changed his tone. "Suddenly he said, ‘You know there is this one guy I really feel like I can work with. I had some experiences with him and his firm that were very different. In fact, they did a great job,’ and that guy was Bruce Rychlik." Shortly thereafter, Santini approached Rychlik about the search.

"John let me know upfront that they wanted to see a continuous flow of candidates," relates Bruce Rychlik. "And that wasn’t a problem, because that’s the way we always work. Every search involves intense continuous research. And when your research is thorough, creative, and ongoing, you turn up qualified candidates from beginning to end."

Santini agrees. "One of the very striking things about Bruce and JRS was that they were able to bring us a very diverse group of people from all different kinds of companies. They weren’t people that they necessarily identified right at the beginning -- meaning that they were generating new primary leads as the search went on. Every week they’d have a couple of new candidates for us to look at."

In identifying candidates, JRS was looking for more than career accomplishments and job experience. They were looking for someone with those intangibles that Santini described – creativity, flexibility, and the ability to take ideas and run with them.

When Bruce met Robert Farra, those "intangible" qualities became abundantly clear. "Bob looked like a great candidate from the start," says Rychlik. He had 20 years of experience at both product and contract design companies developing medical devices from the point of concept and has developed several that had been marketed . I knew he had likely encountered every type of development challenge imaginable, in particular active implantable ones."

They met for coffee, and the more they talked, the more convinced Rychlik became that Farra was a very solid fit. "Bob is a true self-starter," he continues. "He went through a Masters program at MIT full-time while convincing his employer to pay for it and let him work his "day job" at night. It was also clear that he could take an idea and run with it. His technical achievements combined with his character and, perhaps most importantly, his passion for process made him someone I was very interested in having John Santini meet."

Santini was similarly eager to introduce Bob to the rest of the management team and subsequently the board at MicroCHIPS. There were a lot of people to have Bob meet and it was the summer, which made scheduling challenging. But by Labor Day, and after being packaged around a variety of candidates, he was the new Vice President of Research and Development, and has filled the role extremely well. As an added bonus, a Senior Director of Preclinical and Clinical Research was a residual hire that was made a result of Bruce’s efforts.

"Bob is exceptional. We simply wouldn’t be where we are without him," Santini declares. He’s incredibly conscientious...really drives himself." In addition to his passion as a product developer, Bob Farra is also one of those rare, natural leaders who inspires his team to push as hard as he pushes himself. "He has a wonderful way with his team. He treats people with respect and he’s a great motivator... He makes people glad to be here, and there’s nothing more valuable than that."