Crocker named top entrepreneur

Gary L. Crocker's success as a former company president and current venture capital provider has earned him recognition as the MountainWest Venture Group's 1999 Entrepreneur of the Year.

Crocker received the 13th annual award Thursday during the Wayne Brown Institute/Investor's Choice West program in Salt Lake City."It's always a pleasure to have your accomplishments acknowledged," said Crocker, who founded Research Medical Inc. in 1983. "But I think the real significance of this award is that the American economy more and more is being generated by entrepreneurial efforts, as opposed to the traditional large corporate, structured efforts."

Crocker's Research Medical was a manufacturer and marketer of specialty cardiac catheters and related devices that are used in open

heart surgeries. While he was with the company, it generated more than a 20 percent average growth in both sales and earnings and was recognized for six straight years between 1991 and 1996 by Forbes magazine as one of "America's Best 200 Small Growth Companies."

Research Medical was acquired in 1997 by Baxter International, one of the world's largest medical device companies, for $236 million. At the time, it was the biggest medical device merger in Utah history.

Now Crocker is president of Park City-based Crocker Ventures, which looks for new technologies in the areas of health care and medical devices. The company is providing angel investment funds for Nonu Inc. of St. George; Med-Design, a manufacturer of specialty safety needle hospital products in Oxnard, Calif.; and an Internet human resources training company in Salt Lake City.

Crocker said Nonu Inc., which is trying to bring a new herbal health care product to market, is the kind of company he wants to help.

"Nonu Inc. is a group that characterizes the type of firm I like to deal with," he said. "They're very, very passionate about what they're doing."

Before starting Research Medical, Crocker was vice president of business development with the Sorenson Research division of Abbot Laboratories in Salt Lake City. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and serves on the University of Utah Board of Trustees.

Crocker also serves on the boards of TheraTech Inc. and ARUP Inc. He is the chairman of the Utah Youth Village board and president of Utah Opera.