Haven Tyler | Boston Engineering | Women’s Health, Mentorship, & A Horror Film

Haven Tyler is a Senior Client Relations Executive in medical device development at Boston Engineering and an aspiring interior designer in her spare time. In this episode, she discusses her innate curiosity about the world, why she decided to focus primarily on the medtech industry, her passion for furthering women's health, the power of mentorship, and the time she starred in a horror film.

Guest links: https://www.boston-engineering.com/industries/medical/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/haventyler/

Charity supported: Polaris Project

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com.

PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editor: Tim Oliphant Producer: Velentium

SHOW NOTES

Episode 015 - Haven Tyler

Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey with Velentium and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello and welcome to The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host Lindsey, and I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today, Haven Tyler. Haven is a senior client relations executive at Boston Engineering, a consulting and technology development firm based in Boston. Haven brings over 30 years of a consulting experience to her clients and she has worked with such consulting firms as IDEO and Continuum. Haven appreciates the variety in her work, especially the broad range of technical business and regulatory challenges her clients face. In her varied career she made the personal professional shift eight years ago to focus on medical device development because of the impact her teams have on improving patients' lives. The path her current role has not been traditional. Haven has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, studied history of art and fashion, and is an aspiring interior designer in her spare time. Along the way, she also had a short-lived acting career and starred in a horror film in her senior year in college. What knits it all together is an innate curiosity in the world around her and solving tough problems. Well, hello, Haven. Thank you so very much for joining us today. I am so excited to learn more about you. Thanks for being here.

Haven Tyler: Oh, Lindsey, thank you for inviting me. I'm excited to go through this with you.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind starting by just telling us a little bit about yourself and your background and maybe how you got into the industry.

Haven Tyler: Oh, sure, I'd be happy to. So I have to say, in perfect honesty and transparency, my path to where I am has not been a straight one. So it's quite varied. I started out by going to college in New York. I went to a small liberal arts school called Sarah Lawrence. And I studied art history actually. But I think that the thing that education, and also in my family, that was instilled was the sort of innate sense of curiosity. So I think that's a thread that runs throughout my career. I ended up in the Boston area and started actually working for an industrial design firm and learned about industrial design, which is something that was totally new for me.

So I'm clearly more of a visual sort of design person, but I've appreciated the sort of messiness of the creative process and the complexity of problems and I've really always loved that kind of, there's a problem and everyone's brainstorming and coming up to a solution as a group. So that's always been something that I've really enjoyed and I learned a lot from an industrial design perspective. And I was really lucky I got to work at some pretty amazing places. I was able to work at IDEO as their Head of Business Development on the East coast in what I would consider the halcyon days, if you will, of design and design thinking and innovation. And, you know, a lot of those words are buzzwords now, but we were actually living them, you know, back in the day. And that was just such an exciting sort of heady time . And it really just opened up my eyes to how our work could make a difference in the world.

And at that point I was professionally focusing on a range of products including consumer products as well as some medical. But then during the course of basically 30 years, at some point, maybe about eight or nine years ago, I had reached a sort of apex in my career and in my life and just really thinking about what my-- "legacy" is a big word and it's not exactly how I was thinking about it. I don't know what the correct word is, but I was thinking about what difference I could make in the world. And that's when I made the professional and personal decision to shift to focus just on developing medical devices.

And at Boston Engineering, I've been able to do that, which has just been a great privilege to be on the team. And I've loved the complexities of the problems we face and our clients face on a daily basis. I have things that come across my desk that are fascinating and they're disease states that you didn't know about, and understanding about that and sort of diving into what those patients experience, what the doctor's experience, what the hospital's experience in terms of purchasing equipment, what our clients experience in terms of their business needs and their regulatory hurdles and reimbursement hurdles, and the challenges are really complex. And that's what I love is cuz then you have lots of different people with lots of different areas of expertise contributing. I hope that helps answer the question. That was a long-winded, long-winded answer, I apologize.

Lindsey Dinneen: No, I love it. I love that your story is not linear and that you have so many different really interesting twists and turns in your path. I think that's really exciting. And then, I really appreciated the sort of theme of curiosity is being what kind of ties it all together and I'm sure keeps you interested and motivated every day.

Haven Tyler: It does. And you know, it's interesting because in preparation for this, I've been thinking about how I ended up where I am. And I grew up in an academic family in New Haven, Connecticut, and my parents were-- their upbringing, they were born after World War II, so it was like forties and fifties. So their upbringing was very strict and restricted. And then when it came to their own children, it was the seventies and the eighties, so it was hands off parenting. It was very different than it is today. But it was also explore your bliss, like find your passion. There was never a sense of you're gonna have to pay the rent or have a career. There was no thing involved.

Lindsey Dinneen: So, so that was a wonderful thing growing up and maybe a slightly rude awakening as an adult, or were you prepared?

Haven Tyler: Well I think I was prepared in the sense that they instilled a sense of, "you can figure it out." You have the tools to figure anything out, no matter what it is. And it was a question of perseverance and grit and, all of those things. So, I think that it was definitely a little bit of a rude awakening, but you could figure your way out of it.

Lindsey Dinneen: That's fair. I think no matter how prepared you think you are, you're not, anyway, you know, it's always a learning curve, but that's what keeps life interesting.

Haven Tyler: Exactly. Yeah. It's interesting too because I love the fact that if you had asked me at 20 or 21, when I was graduating school, where do you think you'd be? This is not what I would've predicted at all. And I'm also grateful for that because I've ended up in a place that's really great and I, I couldn't have made that up. I couldn't have fantasized that. So, I think that the fact that I get to go to work every day and feel like possibly I'm being helpful to the planet or the world, and maybe we can make a difference in people's lives. And I work for a company that has a ton of integrity and they believe that, they really do. It's not just some kind of byline. It's something that the whole group lives and breathes and that's pretty incredible to be able to say that, right? So, I feel lucky to have landed in a place that feels authentic, you know?

Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. I completely agree. That's one of my very favorite parts about being in the industry is knowing that even if your role is a little bit on the fringes, perhaps it's not the actual engineering of the product, but you're still helping to talk about the product and introduce it to the world, or however you fit into it, you're still making a difference. And I think that's a really powerful motivator and makes it fun to come to work every day because you just know inherently that you're doing good. So that's really special.

Haven Tyler: It is special and I don't think everybody gets to say that, you know? And I have friends who do a variety of different things and I have friends I've known since I was a kid and they're scratching their head going, "you do what for who," you know? How did you get there? And I was like, "I know it doesn't really make a ton of sense, but it's really where I should be." And I don't know if everyone gets to say that.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. It's a special situation when you do, for sure. And especially if you've been through other seasons of your life when perhaps you didn't feel quite as connected to what you were doing. All work is valuable, but sometimes, your personal connection, if it's not there, makes it a little bit harder to be excited about getting up every day and going to work.

Haven Tyler: Yeah. And there was a large part of my career where there was a a focus on really sexy products, if you will. But they were more based in the consumer realm. I loved being a part of that. And it was really cool. And it definitely had its attractions. But at the end of the day, I was like, I'll be walking down the aisle in Target or whatever with my kids going, "Yeah, I helped make that," and I just, I don't know, it wasn't moving the needle or helping the way I wanted to help. So I think that kind of spurred me on to look at medical a little bit more closely.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Is there a particular moment or series of moments that stand out to you because it clearly confirmed that this was the right next career choice for you?

Haven Tyler: Yeah, I think you're right-- the word "series" is probably the best. It's a lifetime of experience, and I can say this now cause I'm getting towards the tail end of my career. I had some health concerns in my own family that we had to address and I think my gratitude for the help that we got living in the Boston area-- I mean-- how fortunate are we to live in that area? You know? So I have access to some of the best minds and medical community. And I grew up in a medically privileged environment. My stepfather is a medical doctor. And our pediatrician was Uncle Sid and Uncle Sid would just like come on over to the house, and it was just amazing that you had access like that. And anyway, my, my appreciation and my gratitude for the people who are helping me and helping my family through a couple of different medical things was really profound, and it gave me a new line of sight into how complex that world was and how complex it was to get to the point where you were able to receive that kinda help. So I think that was definitely an aspect of things.

I think that also having certain people put into my life. So certainly working with my colleague, Paul O'Connor, who heads the medical business unit at Boston Engineering, that has been a really wonderful partnership, and I appreciate working with him. And he's, he has much more experience and depth in the medical arena than I do. But I think that we have a skillset that really complements each other and I rely heavily on him for aspects of building our business. And I hope that, I hope the inverse is true.

So, I think, having a combination of those types of things. I think one thing I wish that I had, and this is something that I talk to my own children about, is finding a mentor. And I didn't have that. So everything I did was really either sort of self-guided and I was just following my curiosity. Or something got put in front of me, and maybe it was fate, maybe it was, who knows? Something was in front of me. I think that large part of that was the product of my upbringing, of the sort of "follow your passion" kind of thing versus the " I'm trying to find a different kind of balance for my own children" and thinking about it with them as they're embarking on their careers. And maybe there could be a little bit more planning involved than there was in my career. Yeah, so I think the value of having mentors in your life, professional mentors, is something that could really be a great tool.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent agree. And that brings me to-- I'd love to hear some of your advice for perhaps somebody who is interested in coming into the medtech field. Maybe as a, either a young career person who would be interested in growing into a leadership role or somebody who is switching careers. Is there any advice that you would relate to that person to help them as they begin that process?

Haven Tyler: Yeah, I think, the notion of a mentor is really the strongest drum I would beat in that regard. I may not also be the best person to ask that question just because I've always been on the consulting side of things. I have not been a part of a larger corporation, like a big med device firm. So I don't really have that perspective necessarily. I do know what I hear at conferences. I do think, and I'm gonna really stress this, that we need more women. I think that the more women we can have in medtech leadership, the better. I've been going to a number of conferences and doing my own research and women's health has been sorely underrepresented for a long time. I think we're getting slightly better and I think we're talking about women's health in a different kind of way, which is fantastic. But the numbers of research and development dollars that are spent globally on women's health is very low. I mean, I think the percentage is about 2%, which somebody said at a conference is a rounding error.

I would love to see that change with the next wave of leadership and I would love to see more women writing checks and making those decisions to expand those conversations and learn more about the different phases of women's health that we go through cuz there are topics that we talk about and there are topics we don't, and I think there's been a decent amount of conversation around women's health, particularly around childbearing years. But, the topic of, let's just say menopause, is one that's very complicated and I think it's a potentially huge market.

So from a business perspective, I think big companies should perk up about that. But I think we need to know more because I think that we don't know enough about that. It's not necessarily a disease state, if you will, but there are lots of varied symptoms with that phase of life and it can be quite confusing. So, I'd love to see that improve. So I guess, mentorship. If you're a younger person, maybe be a little bit more strategic with the help of someone who can guide you through so that you can attain the goals that you, you want to achieve.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Mentorship is such a wonderful gift when you find a good match and are able to learn from that person and benefit basically from their own experiences and things that they would've done differently looking back or whatnot. You know, you talked a little bit about how-- because you didn't have a mentor-- you were self-taught and self-motivated or whatnot. And I'm curious: you have such a interesting eclectic background and you've had lots of different experiences. So how do you personally prioritize your own continued learning and growing, cuz obviously that's just been part of your life along with your curiosity, but I'm just curious how you prioritize it.

Haven Tyler: Oh, it's such a funny question because it's, it's not even a question of prioritization. It just happens. I'm just a curious person. I mean, I'm constantly taking classes that may have nothing to do with my professional life. I think I mentioned I'm pursuing a certificate in interior design because I like it. It's just interesting to me. Color and how colors relate to each other, and color theory. I go down these little rabbit holes that I think are very interesting and I go from there. I love architecture, I love gardening. It's never a dull moment, unfortunately for my family. But yeah, I mean, it's always been that way. It's definitely fun.

So I know a little bit about a lot of things which I think has actually served me well in my particular role, because my role at Boston Engineering is to identify where opportunities might be, develop the appropriate program, and I get engineers to help me with that. And that's creative in a way 'cause if you're looking for an opportunity, I'm looking for the negative space, right? I'm looking for where the hole is and, can I go in there and, is there a problem there we can help solve? And so, as I said, it's messy, but it, it ends up being not messy once you find the solution, if that makes any sense. So no, I don't really have any sort of prioritization.

The one thing that I have gotten better at though is, and I think Covid taught us all a lot, but it's just personally that I've gotten better at is boundaries. So, I start my workday at a specific time. I end my workday at a specific time. And so that allows me to have the space to do the other things I get curious about. So, during Covid, I personally found it a little hard because I think like a lot of us, there was a lot of fear. We didn't know what was coming around the corner from a health perspective, from an economic perspective. It was just scary for everybody. And so I was just very driven. And I think that while it's great to be driven, it can also be unhealthy. So, yeah.

Lindsey Dinneen: I'm just chuckling because I relate to that so much.

Haven Tyler: Yeah, exactly. And you can burn out and burnout's not good. I have a 18 year old who is going to be a college freshman, and she's incredibly driven. And she's just a good student. I've never had to check her homework. I've never had to do anything. And she can burn out. And I, I see this cycle in her and I think she's getting much better at having a balance, but I think left to her own instincts, that's where she goes. And so while that's a great thing in a lot of ways, how do you temper that, so, yeah.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. And that is a really hard balance. But like you said, trying to put in some specific boundaries really does help. It sounds like you are boxing yourself in, but it's actually a freedom generating exercise.

Haven Tyler: Absolutely. I do think that one of the things that I've learned over life is that because I have three children and I, I've been a single parent for most of my children's lives, and taking care of myself was something that I didn't do very well for a long time. And making that a priority is really important. And that can come in many different forms. That can come with, I need to get enough sleep, I need to drink enough water, I need to exercise, I need to make time to walk the dog or sit outside in the woods or whatever it is that I need to do, to be able to do everything else effectively.

It's like that analogy where they give you the instructions on the airplane. And it never made sense to me that you would put the air mask on yourself first before the child. And I always thought that was just the complete opposite. I was like, "this is crazy." And then the reality is no, if you can't breathe, you can't take care of your child. So if you're a crazy person and you haven't slept and you're not eating well and you're not exercising, then you're not gonna be able to take care of anyone else. So, that's been something that has been a priority for a number of years for me. And like finding those balances and saying to people who need my time, like, "Yes, I really want to talk to you. That is very important. I have to get back to you in an hour." Or whatever that is. " But I can't have that conversation right now. I want to have that conversation, but let's do it in a little bit." And creating those guardrails has been helpful.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And not to pivot too dramatically, but I really do have to ask you about your short-lived acting career. Okay. First of all, how did this even come about? And second of all, what was that experience like?

Haven Tyler: Yeah. So it's, it was a little surreal, but yes. So I, as a part of my schooling, I took my senior year in Italy for art history. It was just an amazing experience. And that's one thing I encourage everyone to do. Try and study abroad if you can, or live abroad for a little bit. Anyway, while I was there, I was doing a lot of, and I had been doing while I was in school in New York, a bunch of kind of modeling and that was a great way to make money, but it was painfully boring. So I wanted to get out of that, but I still needed to figure out a way to support myself.

So, an American woman, who I met in Rome through a friend, was a casting agent, and she said, "You know, let me send you on a few things." And she sent me on one audition and it was funny because my mother, who is a dean of a college at Yale, she's like a serious person. She had flown in, we were gonna spend two weeks together and she had flown in and I said, "Oh, before we go, I have to go on this audition." And she is looking at me with her blue eyes going, "What the heck is this?" And I said "No, no, no, it's fine."

And we went into this place that kinda looked like a dentist office, but it had these big posters with monsters. And these guys come out and they don't speak any English and they say, "Come with me." And so I go back there and all I had to do was scream. So my poor mother was waiting in the lobby and all she hears is me scream. And so, I got the part. But I think that largely had to do with the fact that I had red hair and freckles and Sigourney Weaver was a thing at the time and the movie was a very specific genre. It was sort of a mashup, which was common then. It was a mashup between sort of "Aliens" and "Terminator." Anyway, it was just an absolute blast. I'm so grateful I had the experience. I am a horrible actress. But it was just really fun. And we spent two months filming in abandoned nuclear power plants. We spent a week in Venice filming overnight. I mean, it was just incredible.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thank you for sharing about that, because that is an amazing story and such a unique opportunity. I love that you did that.

Haven Tyler: It was very fun. And I think two years ago, it was the 30th anniversary or something of the film release, and it has this unusual kind of, but very fun, cult following cuz it's this bad, bad horror movies. It was a part of a big drive-in movie theater movie festival up in upstate New York. So we all went, my family all went, we had our beach chairs and we got to watch it. And we had posters and signing autographs. It was just, it was very funny.

Lindsey Dinneen: That is amazing. I love it. I love it. Well, okay. That is fantastic. Just for fun, imagine someone were to offer you a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It can be in your industry or related to your education, but doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach and why?

Haven Tyler: That's a really fun question, and it's a big question. I think it would be a combination of teaching people to be their authentic self, and curiosity and creativity, all jumbled up together. And how to explore those and find them in yourself.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So when you say finding your authentic self, is there a specific thing that you would highlight? Or how would you talk more about that? Because I think that's an important thing that, that isn't always talked about as much.

Haven Tyler: Yeah, I think that I'm fortunate to have landed in a place professionally where I feel comfortable being myself. I think that when you're starting out your career, there's this feeling that you might misstep or you might make a mistake, and you clam up, you don't speak up, because you are concerned that you might say something wrong or you might embarrass yourself. Or you know, I mean, and I was guilty of this too. I'm not saying this with any judgment. I just think that it's, it's a natural thing. But to encourage people to feel, especially younger folks, to feel more confident in sharing because like 99.9% of the time us old folks in the room, we wanna hear what you have to say. But to let go of that fear to allow yourself to, to shine, whatever the topic is.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's especially something-- in fact, I was just having a conversation about this yesterday of the tendency and I think-- maybe not all women, but a lot of times for women-- especially the tendency to shrink and not show up as your full, authentic self. Not because you don't want to, but because you're not sure if you're gonna be accepted or if your opinion's gonna matter or count or any of those things that, that kind of keep you a little bit more quiet when actually you have a voice. You have things to say. And your contribution matters.

Haven Tyler: Yeah, it absolutely matters. And I've had the privilege of having younger folks on our teams and having these conversations with them and then once they start to feel encouraged and more supported, the solutions and the things that the ideas they have are just fantastic, really great stuff. And I see this with my own children as well. I love talking to my adult children. I'm like, "Wow, that's really interesting that you thought about it that way." Or they'll know something profoundly different than I do. And I think it's fascinating. So I would encourage people to find a place where you feel safe enough to be able to express yourself that way.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, and I absolutely agree with you. And conversely, I think that's a good reminder also for leaders to, to provide that space, to provide that encouragement for especially younger folks to speak up and that it's safe, it's accepted. So kind of on both sides, like yes, encourage the younger career folks to, to speak up more and also encourage those who do have the privilege of being in leadership to do their part to foster that environment too?

Haven Tyler: Absolutely. And I think it's our responsibility to do that, actually.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned legacy a little bit earlier and that ties in very well to one of my questions, and that is, what is the one thing you wish to be remembered for after you leave this world?

Haven Tyler: So again, a very big question. I think I would really appreciate if people could think of it as like, "Oh, she was helpful." I don't need to be a rock star. I don't need to be a shining star. I just wanna be helpful.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Love that. Yeah. And then final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

Haven Tyler: Oh, my dog. A hundred percent.

Lindsey Dinneen: Okay. Tell us about your dog, because I love dogs.

Haven Tyler: No, she's a total punk. I love her dearly but she hates people except for us. And she's just, yeah she's wonderful, little cuddle bug. But she's a Boston Terrier, but she's sort of the wrong colors. They're normally black and white and she's brown and white, and so she's a little offbeat, which makes me like her even more.

Lindsey Dinneen: I love it. She is her own dog.

Haven Tyler: Exactly.

Lindsey Dinneen: That's fantastic. Well, I love hearing your stories and your insights and your advice. Thank you just so very much for taking the time today to speak with me and for sharing just a little bit about yourself and what's important to you. I just really value that. So, so thank you.

Haven Tyler: Thank you, Lindsey. I appreciate this, and I appreciate before we jumped on the recording, you describing your motivation for starting this podcast. And I think that it's really important the work that you're doing, and I think that getting at the underlying motivations for people being in this industry is really interesting. I mean, yes, at the end of the day, it is a business and we do live in a capitalistic society. I mean, that's just like baseline. However, within that there's a lot of choice that people have to make, and how you go about achieving those goals can be very different. And I think that on our side of the fence, on the consulting side of the world, none of us are ever going to be the next Bill Gates. But it's such a motivator to think that, " Okay, this might make a difference in somebody's life." And it just gives me goosebumps to think about, like that we can say we helped make that. It's really pretty cool stuff, so I'm glad to talk about it.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the Polaris Project, which is a non-governmental organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in North America. So thank you for choosing that organization to support and really appreciate that, and we just wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world.

Haven Tyler: Thank you so much, Lindsey.

Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. And thank you also to our listeners for tuning in ,and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two, and we will catch you next time.

The Leading Difference podcast is brought to you by Velentium.

Velentium is a contract design and manufacturing firm specializing in the development, production and post-market support of diagnostic and therapeutic active medical devices, including implantables and wearables for neuromodulation and other class three indications.

Velentium's core competencies include electrical design, mechanical design, embedded software, mobile apps, contract manufacturing, embedded cybersecurity, OT cybersecurity, systems engineering, human factors and usability, and automated test systems.

Velentium works with clients worldwide from startups seeking seed funding to established Fortune 100 companies.

Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.