Dr. Treat is the founder and leader of Robotic Systems & Technologies, Inc.  Throughout his 25-year career as a general surgeon, he has been a tireless advocate of medical technology and a prolific inventor, with numerous medical device patents to his credit.   Dr. Treat is an Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery in the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University and an Attending Surgeon at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.  Dr. Treat founded RST in 2002 to advance his vision for medical automation.

Two of Dr. Treat’s surgical device inventions have achieved commercialization.  The first was a bipolar electrocautery snare for endoscopic polypectomy, which employed a new approach to improve the safety of endoscopic polyp removal.  Starion Instruments Corporation of San Jose California is currently marketing another of Dr. Treat’s devices.   Starion is a highly successful start-up with growing sales based on thermal tissue welding technology invented by Dr. Treat and licensed to Starion by Columbia University.

Jack Kaplan is a senior business and academic leader with over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience in health care and stored-value prepaid card services.  During his career, Mr. Kaplan started and managed three successful companies and has raised capital in excess of 10 million dollars.  Mr. Kaplan was President, Founder and Director of Datamark Technologies Inc, responsible for strategic and financial planning.  He was also the architect of Datamark’s marketing plan to offer stored-value and loyalty card programs in the corporate, financial, and hospitality marketplaces.

Mr. Kaplan is the author of Patterns of Entrepreneurship and Getting Started in Entrepreneurship published by John Wiley and Sons in April 2003.  His previous book, Smart Cards: The Global Information Passport and numerous articles have appeared in Technology News, Crain’s of New York MIT Enterprise Forum.  As Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, at the Columbia Business School, he has developed and taught the entrepreneurial undergraduate and graduate MBA courses concentrating in new ventures in technology, Business Plans, and Entrepreneurial Management.

Mr. Berk is a proven senior executive with over 20 years experience in building a successful software technology enterprise from the ground up including creating a vision, strategy, and technology assessment.  Prior to joining RST, Mr. Berk served as Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Datamark Technologies and as a Senior Vice President at Comdata after Datamark’s acquisition in 2004 by Comdata.  Additionally, Mr. Berk managed a variety of projects at AT&T including telephony, database design and a bar-coded hazardous chemical tracking system.  He holds a BS degree in Computer Science and Corporate Finance from Yeshiva University and has engaged in computer engineering graduate degree work at the Polytechnic Institute of New York.

Renee Giangrasso is Senior Vice President, Business Development, for Robotic Systems & Technologies, Inc.  Prior to joining RST, she was a marketing and communications executive for Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.  Renee has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry spanning product launches and innovative marketing programs that grew both market share and revenue.  Throughout her career, she served on numerous state and national committees as an advocate for Roche and the US healthcare industry.  She has won numerous company and industry awards and has 9 publications.  She holds a BS and MS from Rutgers University and an MBA from Columbia Business School 2001.

Mike Brady is the chief technical architect at RST, providing leadership in the areas of product development, project management, and design.  He joined the company at an early stage of development and is responsible for engineering the extensive code base used throughout RST’s product line.

Mr. Brady was formerly a Lead Designer and Developer in the Advanced Computing Group at Boeing.  There he lead the development team for CPACS, a cargo planning and analysis tool for the Space Station.  CPACS is used to configure cargo for all space shuttle resupply flights to and from the Station.  It was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget.

Russell Baker is RST’s lead engineer, responsible for the mechanical design of all of our products.  Russell performs material and construction analysis, creates all CAD models, and manages all our suppliers.  Mr. Baker is also a skilled machinist.  He creates high-fidelity product prototypes in-house and has led the effort to create a world-class fabrication facility at RST.  Working in aluminum, plastics, composites, carbon-fiber, or fiberglass, Mr. Baker can rapidly create mockups, prototypes, test articles, or final products — anything we need to bring our products from concept to reality.

Mr. Baker is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.   While studying robotics, he designed and built an eight-foot robotic arm for Prof. Peter Allen of the Computer Science department.   The arm was intended to hold an underground scanning radar that could not be near any metal; hence the robot was entirely nonmetallic.