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Richard Daniels, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer has been instrumental in Yurbuds being named by Forbes as the 9^th Most Promising Company in America taking yurbuds from concept to Best Buy order in 18 months.  Rich has as a broad background in business management, business development & innovation, sales, marketing, manufacturing and operations planning.  Rich began his career with Monsanto in manufacturing and operations management and then worked in several functional departments, including sales, marketing, product management, new product development, and general management of multiple businesses. Over his 22-year career working for Monsanto, Solutia, and Honeywell International, Rich drove profitability through new business development, product line consolidation, and customer and product mix improvement.  At Honeywell International, Rich led a global team of 350 people in a Specialty Films business, to improve profitability and reposition the pharmaceutical packaging business from a materials supplier to a solutions provider.  Rich has extensive experience in establishing business partnerships and alliances in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, as well as building and leading sales and marketing organizations. 

Most recently as the Vice President, Innovation & Growth, at Solutia, Rich led a new business team in the creation of a new business line in photovoltaic solar panels.  He has extensive experience in the identification of market needs through in-depth customer interviews, leading to the development and commercialization of new products totaling over $75M.

Prior to working for Honeywell, Rich led sales, marketing and technical services organizations in both Europe/Africa and North America for Solutia Inc.’s Laminated Glazing Interlayer business.  During this period at Solutia, Rich led the development of global demand management processes and sales forecasting as part of an integrated sales & operations planning process, achieving Class A certification. Rich has lived in Brussels, Belgium for two years and has held global responsibilities supervising and leading organizations.

Seth Burgett, President and CEO has led his current venture, Yurbuds, to being named by Forbes as the 9^th Most Promising Company in America.  Yurbuds has raised more than $3M in private investment and has gone from forming a business with a concept to receiving an order from Best Buy in 18 months.  Seth is a member of the St. Louis 40 under 40 Class of 2010 and has a background in minimally invasive surgical devices for cardiology, neurology and ophthalmology and currently serves on the Board of Directors for IV Diagnostics, a biotech/medical device company developing more effective cancer diagnostic tools for circulating tumor cells (CTC’s). Seth has led teams globally while integrating technologies in the US, Europe and Asia, including strategic ventures with Siemens Medical and Philips Medical Solutions while employed at Stereotaxis, Inc.  Most recently Mr. Burgett was Principal Systems Engineer at Bausch and Lomb Surgical, to develop their flagship product, the Stellaris^TM cataract surgical system.  In this role, Mr. Burgett was the R&D Core Team leader with responsibility for cross functional management of Software, Electrical, Mechanical and Systems Engineering disciplines directing these efforts in the US, Europe and Asia.  Mr. Burgett was hired into Bausch and Lomb in 2005 to re-energize a technical team by directing program managers, engineering fellows and senior technical engineers in the proper use of systems engineering principals.  These efforts led to Bausch and Lomb’s Focus on Excellence Award in 2006. 

Prior to joining Bausch and Lomb, Mr. Burgett was a technical leader and manager in two technology start-ups for over 10 years.  Both start-ups achieved exits, one company was acquired and the other held an IPO in 2004.  Mr. Burgett was the product architect to the Niobe® product at Stereotaxis, Inc. which is a robotic surgical device to navigate catheters through the heart.  In this capacity, Mr. Burgett was the top technical engineer authoring the concept through detailed design to the Niobe^® robotics control system, electrical design, mechanical design and industrial design.  Mr. Burgett shares the patent application and continuation for Niobe^® with Dr. Francis (Duke) Creighton, a physicist, who was responsible for the Niobe^® magnet design.  (Dr. Creighton now heads Yurbuds Scientific Advisory Board.)  The Niobe^® robotic surgical device is used globally by top cardiologists and major medical centers such as the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics.  The commercialization of this technology has generated over $100 Million in revenues.