Sandy Devers and Rachel Minnich were classmates in a male dominated electrical engineering class at State.  They graduated first and second in the program and were offered jobs with Medtech, a company that was designing medical devices including sophisticated TENS units and pacemakers.  During the first year there Sandy was one of two engineers on a project that resulted in a successful stomach pacemaker.  Six of the ten patents for the device included her name and one for a method of using chemical, pressure and nerve impulse feedback to trigger actions bore her name alone.  Rachel was assigned to work with a senior engineer on improving the company’s line of TENS units.  Several of her ideas were employed in the new device.  Her name was on one less patent than Sandy’s but she had two with her name alone.  The two women were rising stars at the company and in the field. 

Two months after they started with Medtech they started work on a device that was conceived during a lunch table discussion while in college.  Medtech was very liberal in allowing engineers access to test equipment to do personal work. They could also buy components out of inventory at company cost. Chips that would have cost twenty dollars retail could be bought for less than five.  The company had over a hundred patents it jointly held with employees from this off the clock work.  They were currently bringing in nearly a half million dollars of bottom line to the company and an equivalent amount to the employees.  One of the accountants checked on the ten year old policy. The full value of the components was less than a hundred thousand dollars.  He suggested they give the employees a day off every week to pursue their own projects.  Medtech management wasn’t ready for that idea yet but did set aside two hours a week for employees to share and collaborate. 

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