Earl Bakken

Earl Elmer Bakken (January 10, 1924 – October 21, 2018) was an American engineer, businessman and philanthropist of Dutch and Norwegian American ancestry. He founded Medtronic, where he developed the first external, battery-operated, transistorized, wearable artificial pacemaker in 1957. Early life and education Bakken was born on January 10, 1924, in Columbia Heights, Minnesota and was of Norwegian ancestry. Bakken had a long-held fascination with electricity and electronics. A self-described "nerd", Bakken designed a rudimentary electroshock weapon in school to fend off bullies. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1948 from the University of Minnesota. His electrical engineering education continued and he then obtained a Master's degree with a minor in mathematics also from the University of Minnesota. As a boy, Bakken was inspired by the combination of electricity and medicine seen in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and the subsequent 1931 film version starring Boris Karloff was a direct inspiration on Earl Bakken to pursue his future vocation, which would lead to his invention of the pacemaker and founding of Medtronic. Bakken would later found a museum about medical science and electricity in Minneapolis, The Bakken, which features an extensive Frankenstein display. Career Post-World War II hospitals were just starting to employ electronic equipment, but did not have staff to maintain and repair them. Sensing an opportunity, with his brother-in-law, Palmer Hermundslie, he formed Medtronic (a portmanteau of "medical" and "electronic") in a small garage, primarily working with the University of Minnesota hospital.