Cook Biotech’s Umesh Patel Gives Engineering Students Career Advice
Patel was recognized because of his outstanding contributions to biomedical engineering over the past thirty years, ever since he was an engineering student at Purdue University. Patel and his colleague Michael Hiles (currently the vice president and chief science officer at Cook Biotech) played instrumental roles in the discovery and subsequent research into SIS, including processing and designing prototype devices and getting SIS on the market. To date, Patel has over 50 patents to his credit.
Patel credits his success to several key pieces of advice that he gave to the talented students in the audience that night (who also received recognitions for their own work at Purdue). Here is his advice for students.
Find a company that treats you with respect: One of my favorite things about Cook Biotech is that we respect our co-workers and our business partners (in fact, respect is one of our core values). We’re open to different ideas and opinions, and we appreciate what each person brings to the table. Find a company that values your contributions and opinions.
Don’t be afraid to fail: There will be times when you fail; failure is an inevitable part of growth. Learn from those failures and move on, always looking to the future. Failure happens a lot in research and development. In the early days of starting Cook Biotech, there were many, many attempts on how to produce medical-grade small intestinal submucosa (SIS) at scale. Every time we failed, we learned something about the process and improved.
Challenge yourself: Challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone. That’s how you grow. It’s easy to stay in your groove, but you may be amazed at what happens when you push yourself to get uncomfortable and take risks. Early in my career, I was not a fan of public speaking. It made me very uncomfortable. The more times I had to do it, the more comfortable I became. Taking that first step was the hardest, but it paid off.
Make an effort to get to know your professors: Your professors can help you in ways you never dreamed of. They can teach you things that will help you throughout your career. I still use the advice my professor gave me about organizing information. Past professors have also opened doors for me that have helped my career.
Have fun: It can be easy to get caught up in working so hard that you forget to have fun. I have been fortunate to work at a company that takes its work seriously and understands it is also important to not take yourself too seriously. A good joke or pun is helpful to reduce stress. Laugh a little and give others the opportunity to have fun while working hard.
Thank you to Umesh for sharing the lessons he’s learned throughout his career and that he actively teaches to those he works with at Cook Biotech every day.