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In retirement on the Big Island of Hawaii, a Minnesota medical engineering legend is experimenting with health care. Nearly 20 years ago, Doris Bakken fell in love with an expanse of oceanfront land on the Big Island of Hawaii, a patch of paradise for a retirement home. But the real estate agent warned: There was no water, electricity or sewer service. "That's OK," she replied. "My husband is an engineer." Indeed he is: Earl Bakken is the inventor of the first battery-powered pacemaker and a co-founder of Medtronic Inc., now the world's biggest medical technology company, with $13.5 billion in revenue. It turned out that paradise would require a good deal of the inventor's ingenuity. Once the Bakkens settled into retirement, they discovered the island had no hospital. A conventional "warehouse for sick people" -- as Earl... [read full story]
