Broughton Quarterly - Winter 2007 - (Page 22)

He’s no dummy; Wang’s company InTouch Health is on the leading edge of robotics. But it was surfing, as much as engineering, that originally drew him to Santa Barbara as a college student. Despite his rather impressive techno-laurels, Wang is no nerd. He talks like your typical beach-loving Californian, and manages to surf and play tennis as much as possible. and global imports hurting American carmakers, the two traditional robot-loving industries of defense and automobile manufacturing were in downward spirals. “But everybody was talking about health care costs going up and going crazy,” recalled Wang, “and I figured, ‘Heck, maybe this is where robots are going.’” He spoke with some doctor friends at Santa Barbara’s Cottage Hospital, and the need for a surgical robot was apparent. “Aesop” was invented, the FDA gave the okay, and, said Wang, “We were the hit of trade shows.” (That’s an understatement—the company had a $150 million IPO.) In 1999, Aesop performed the first closed chest heart surgery and, in 2001, doctors used the model to operate 4,000 miles away. Since then, robots have since become a critical tool for many surgeries in thousands of hospitals worldwide and remote procedures are increasingly common. Eventually, a competing company out of the Bay Area called Intuitive Surgical emerged, and lawsuits ensued over patents. Time came for Wang to unload his company, and in 2002, that’s what he did, making quite a sum of money in the process. “That gave me an opportunity to start something new,” said Wang, who’s clearly not bitter about his old company’s end, and even said that “we have a pretty good relationship with those guys now.” Ever the workhorse, Wang didn’t take any substantial break loving Californian, and manages to surf and play tennis as much as possible. And those outdoor pursuits are among the main reasons he landed in Santa Barbara to begin with. Wang, who grew up mostly in the Bay Area, explained that he came to UCSB “because it had the combination of elements that I was looking for. One, it had a very good engineering program. Two, it was right on the ocean, and one of my big things is surfing. And three,” he added with an audible smirk, “it has really good looking women, which at that time was very important to me.” He eventually met his wife of nearly 20 years at UCSB, and today they have four kids, the oldest of whom will graduate high school next June. After his own graduation from UCSB, Wang initially pursued a PhD in oceanographic engineering at Scripps Institute in San Diego. But when UCSB won a $12 million National Science Foundation grant—establishing the seaside university as the top robotics center west of the Mississippi (Carnegie Mellon University remains the top robot school in the country)—Wang was lured back by a former mentor. In 1988, Wang earned UCSB’s first robotics PhD. After a brief teaching stint, he was tempted by the lucrative private sector and founded Computer Motion in 1989. With the Cold War fizzling 22 Broughton Quarterly Winter 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Broughton Quarterly - Winter 2007

Broughton Quarterly - Winter 2007 Contents Contributors Plugged In Notes Calendar 1000Words Destination Wine & Cuisine Introducing Doctor Robot In the Desert Stillness Richard Branson Marketplace Spotlight

Broughton Quarterly - Winter 2007

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