'82 M.S., Computer & Information Science
Chief Technology Officer
MysticMD Inc. and eGen, LLC
Joel Douglas has always been on the move, whether it’s through playing basketball, running track or sailing as a young boy, climbing telephone poles for the phone company during college summers, or in his adulthood, creating company after company to develop scientific solutions to particular challenges.
He was an average student at the University of Connecticut, he recalls, but once he met Heidi Seifert, his approach to education changed. “Heidi kept me going through the whole thing,” he says.
By the time he graduated from the University of New Haven with his master’s degree in Computer and Information Science, he had mastered the art of learning. After college, he held a variety of technology jobs, but after he arrived in northern California with Heidi, the Silicon Valley startup bug bit him. He started one company, then another, then another, each one addressing a specific need in the marketplace that Joel’s creativity could then fill.
He did it so well that in 2004, he was named one of the 100 Notable People in the Medical Device Industry by Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry magazine, the arbiter of all that is noteworthy in the medical device industry.
He’s back in Connecticut now, and still creating companies that fill needs. A wry sense of humor, tenacity, and a learned ability to be flexible and open to new ideas has stood Joel in good stead on his path to a successful career.
He couldn’t have done it, he says, without an education. “My education gave me a foothold in the sand, and the jobs I had taught me to be flexible,” he says. “If you don’t get an education, you are going to pay a very severe price.”
