Title?!

Ginger L. Graham is the president of Guidant’s Vascular Intervention groupGroup. What's vascular intervention? What kind of group? Support group? She was named a Guidant vice president when the company was formed in September 1994. In 1979, Ms. Graham joined Eli Lilly and Company and spent her first five years working in the agricultural chemical division, Elanco, where she was involved in testing the toxicity of pesticides. After a two-year educational leave, Ms. Graham returned to Lilly in 1986 as manager of long-range planning for the financial sector. She was named special projects manager for the Elizabeth Arden divestiture team in 1987 and, the next year, was named manager of economic studies in the pharmaceutical division. What's divestiture? She later served as the division’s director of strategic planning. Overall, this represents a rather lackluster introduction. You could have started out with a discussion of whether or not it is typical for women to hold high-level administrative positions in bioengineering firms, or you could have started with an interesting anecdote about Ms. Graham's move from pesticides to planning. In addition, the opening paragraph has no clearly stated controlling idea. It lacks a thesis statement that defines the paper's scope.

First sentence represents nice transition from the previous paragraph. It pulls together two different positions at two different companies. Ms. Graham explained that her work as an executive at Guidant and as the former director of Lilly’s strategic planning initiative for its pharmaceutical division requires expert communication skills. She interacts with all sorts of people including other administrators, engineers in research and design, as well as consumers of products (physicians and patients). Ms. Graham mentioned that each group has a different set of needs and goals, which governs its decision-making and problem-solving processes. Examples? They also “speak different languages.” For example, the engineers designing devices in Guidant’s Vascular Group rattle off acronyms such as PTCA and LIDA like the alphabet; , whereas, patient-consumers who attend focus groups hosted by Guidant to identify problems with particular products may refer to a “catheter” as “that wire-thing that sucks out stuff in your arteries.” Ms. Graham emphasized that building a consensus, managing conflicts between groups with opposing interests, and generating a profit are the most challenging and exhilarating aspects of her job. Did she mention any specific conflicts?

Ms. Graham has become a leader in bioengineering through her knowledge of business, finance and management. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural economics from the University of Arkansas in 1979, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University in 1986. In what ways is she a leader in your view? How exactly has her educational background helped her become a successful leader in bioe? What motivated her to take a leave of absence from work to get a business degree? Does she consider herself a bioengineer? How is her training different from most bioengineers? No transition to next paragraph.

Nice summary of Guidant's mission, but this paragraph on Guidant constitutes PLAGIARISM. Do not take information from web sites without properly citing sources! Guidant is a world leader in the design and development of cardiovascular solutions. Its products help patients with heart disease return to active and productive lives. Guidant’s mission is to provide physicians with leading-edge technologies for improved patient management and clinical outcomes.

Guidant has three main divisions: the Cardiac Rhythm Management Group, the Cardiac & Vascular Surgery Group, and the Vascular Intervention Group. The Cardiac Rhythm Management Group, launched the world’s first implantable defibrillator in 1985, which treat life-threatening rapid heart rhythms. The Cardiac & Vascular Surgery Group develops innovative medical instruments that help surgeons perform minimally invasive surgical procedures. These procedures, which previously required standard open surgery, can greatly reduce patient recovery time and post-surgery discomfort. The Vascular Intervention Group is a leader in interventional cardiovascular products. The division pioneered the development of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), or balloon angioplasty, as a treatment approach for blocked coronary arteries. The catheter is inserted into the blocked area and inflated to compress the plaque against the arterial walls and restore blood flow to the heart. There's a logical disconnect between sentences. How did we move from blood flow to billions of dollars? Guidant <www.guidant.com> is a $1.9 billion company with more than 6,000 employees, headquartered in Indianapolis. Your paper ends on a very distant note. It emphasizes the 6000 faceless employees in Indianapolis rather than Ms. Graham. Try to personalize the conclusion or reflect on what you gained from talking to her. What’s her takeaway message or yours? Finally, you mention that Ms. Graham's communication skills and business degrees have helped her succeed, but I don't have a clear sense of the work she does for Guidant. Would you want a job like hers?

References??