Management Team

John earned his MS in Metallurgical Engineering & Material Science from the University of Notre Dame, after which he worked at both Chrysler and at National Steel Research. As a research engineer, John developed rolling and forming techniques designed to produce high strength, low alloy steel for automotive and industrial applications, authoring several papers on the topic. He has spent nearly three decades working with shape memory alloys with Raychem and NDC, and has made major contributions to Nitinol melting, forming, and product development. John is responsible for overseeing all NDC material from the ingot to all finished wire, tube, and sheet form.

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Tom received his BS in Physics form Lehigh University in 1974. After working for the Atomic Energy Commission, he returned to school to earn his MS, ME and PhD in Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1980. He then went to Switzerland, working for three years as a research scientist for Brown-Boveri, Cie. before returning to the U.S. to work at Raychem Corporation. In 1991, he left the corporate environment to found NDC with a consortium of private investors. Tom has served as the president of NDC since its inception in 1991, through its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 1997, stepping down in 2007 in order to negotiate an asset purchase back from Johnson & Johnson. While at Johnson & Johnson, he was instrumental in the development of the SMART stent line of products, the TrapEase filter, and several other products within the company’s Cordis division. Tom also served on the Cordis management board and managed its Advanced R&D group. He also co-founded the Society of Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies, an organization that has since been acquired by the American Society of Metals. He has authored more than a hundred patents and publications in the field of shape memory alloys, as well as the fiction novel Stan's Leap.

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Chuck Faris is the Vice President of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs. He is an experienced quality professional with a large variety of professional and business experience. Educated at the US Military Academy (West Point, NY) with a BS in Aerospace Engineering in 1984, he spent 6 years in the Army as a Military Intelligence pilot and project manager for DA intelligence systems after graduation. His first medical device experience was with Johnson & Johnson as a production supervisor in 1990. This was followed by promotion to process engineering and eventual leadership of the process engineering group by 1994. His first quality assurance position was as the Quality Manager in 1996 for a small independent company in Johnson & Johnson Medical. This was followed by a Quality Manager position within C.R. Bard in 1997. He rejoined J&J in 1998 as the Quality Manager for Receiving Quality at LifeScan. Chuck joined NDC in 2000 as the Head of Quality. During his career, he has had direct responsibility for production, engineering, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, supplier management, production planning, and lean manufacturing implementation. He is fully experienced in all medical device quality systems, applied statistics and regulatory compliance.

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Since joining NDC, Steve has had management responsibility for a large group of R&D professionals working on four major product areas. Prior to joining NDC, Steve operated an independent consultancy focused on cardiovascular device design and development. During this time he designed and initiated development of two cardiovascular implants that, following successful preclinical efforts, are continuing toward commercialization. At Afferent Corporation, a neurotherapeutic device company, Steve was part of the executive management team and his primary responsibilities included defining the technology commercialization and product development strategies. Steve was the founding employee of NMT Medical and was responsible for all R&D activities at NMT from 1986 to 2000. He was an early pioneer in the development of Nitinol-based cardiovascular implants and has designed/developed five commercial products including, the Simon Nitinol Vena Cava Filter®, the SNF-SL™ filter product, the Symphony™ Nitinol stent, the Recovery™ removable vena cava filter, and the CardioSeal™ cardiac septal repair device. He has authored 25 patents for medical devices.

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Jeff directs the manufacturing for medical components, which encompasses laser processing and finishing cells. Following graduation from the University of Pittsburgh in 1974, Jeff entered the Quality and Reliability Assurance field as a civilian employee of the Department of the Army, where he rapidly moved into leadership positions. Jeff became involved with the Nitinol technology in 1988 when he joined the Metals Division of Raychem Corporation. While at Raychem, Jeff made the transition to Operations, serving as the Operations Manager for the Medical Division until he joined NDC in 1996, where he served as Quality Manager during the early growth period of the company. Jeff moved on to become the Director of Quality under NDC/Johnson & Johnson during the initial ISO 9001 registration effort, and returned to Operations as the Plant Manager in 2000. Jeff spearheaded the transition to Lean Manufacturing and promoted a culture of continuous improvement while launching multiple new product lines and processing techniques under Johnson & Johnson.


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Attila has an MD from Semmelweis Medical School, an MBA from Columbia University and an MS in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University. Attila spent five years as an entrepreneur as a co-founder of Sparsense, Inc., an early-stage technology company in the medical image processing space, and Guidepath Medical, Inc., a cardiovascular device manufacturer. He then worked for the Cordis and NDC franchises of Johnson & Johnson for seven years, both in the U.S. and Europe. As part of Johnson & Johnson's leadership development program he held various positions in sales & marketing, professional education and product development. In 2005, he founded Clinasys, LLC, a provider of medical device development services. He returned to NDC in 2008.

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Dave earned his BS in Ocean Engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy and MS in Ocean Engineering at the University of Washington and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy as a E-2C Hawkeye pilot and flight instructor before joining Raychem Corporation. He began his career with Nitinol in 1985 with shape memory couplings and connector products for military aerospace and electronics markets. Since joining NDC in July 1996 the Trade business has enjoyed a tenfold growth in revenues in material and components. Dave was responsible for bringing the first two NDC websites to life and has managed the daily relationships with Euroflex, the company’s European business partner, since 1994.

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Alan received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1982, followed by an appointment of postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. In 1983, he accepted a position as Associate Metallurgist at Ames Laboratory and adjunct faculty at Iowa State University. In 1986, he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He then accepted a position of Research Manager of the Metals Division at Raychem Corporation in 1989, where he worked on processing and mechanical properties of Nitinol. In 1993, he joined NDC where his responsibilities include process development, component prototyping, and corrosion and fatigue behavior of Nitinol. Not only is he one of the world's most recognized names in Nitinol, he consults with and is well recognized by the FDA. He has published over 100 technical papers with primary emphasis on the structure, processing, mechanical properties, corrosion behavior, and fatigue properties of Nitinol. He co-founded the Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies Society and edited the conference proceedings in 1994, 1997, 2000, and 2003.

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Dieter has 40 years of experience in the development and commercialization of products made from advanced materials. Dieter holds a MS and PhD in Physical Metallurgy from the University of Stuttgart (Max Planck Institute for Metal Science), Germany. Before joining NDC in 1993, Dieter worked at Raychem Corp., a pioneer in Nitinol technology, and at G. RAU GmbH, Pforzheim, Germany, where he directed the development and commercialization of advanced materials, and launched the first commercial product from shape memory alloys in the European market. In 1993 he initiated the formation of Euroflex GmbH, a European joint venture where he served as president from 1993 to 2007. In 1996 he represented NDC as founding partner and member of the Board of Admedes GmbH, a producer of medical implants. He served as President of NDC from 1995 until Johnson & Johnson acquired the company in 1997, and was instrumental in positioning NDC as the leading supplier of Nitinol semi-finished materials and finished components for the medical market. He served as Executive Vice President until May 2008, when he retired from Johnson & Johnson to lead the spin-off of the NDC materials business together with Tom Duerig. He is the recipient of several scientific and industrial awards and is author or co-author of more than 175 publications and five books on advanced materials. He is cited as an inventor or co-inventor on more than 50 patents.

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Chun received his BA in Economics and Accounting from the University of California Berkeley in 1990. After graduating from UC Berkeley, he held various positions at PG&E for 10 years supporting cash forecasting, acquisitions and divestitures, capital accounting, property tax reporting and treasury operations. While working full time at PG&E, he completed his MBA with a concentration in finance in 1995 from the University of San Francisco where he graduated summa cum laude. Chun joined NDC in 2000 as Plant Controller responsible for manufacturing operations, R&D support and finance operations. In 2005, Chun was the Financial Controller for Johnson & Johnson's West Coast Pharmaceuticals Operation supporting ALZA, Scios and Pharmaceutical R&D. During his tenure at Johnson & Johnson, Chun held increasing levels of responsibility managing financial reporting, medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing support, annual and strategic planning, R&D support, business development, Sarbanes Oxley compliance, Health Care compliance and finance operations. In 2007, Chun worked with Tom Duerig and Dieter Stöckel to divest the materials business from Johnson & Johnson. He is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA).

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