Derek Herrera is the founder of Spinal Singularity, a medical device company that develops products to improve lives for those with spinal injury. He started the company in 2015 after working for another startup medical device company to learn a bit of the ropes.
We discussed his path to becoming an entrepreneur and journey so far.Derek graduated from the Naval Academy and was a Marine Corps officer for many years. He was shot and injured while on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and was paralyzed. He has been a very active advocate for Marines and veterans and is on the board of several foundations. It is amazing how many parallels his military experience and startup journey have, and his training there has been very helpful to him.
He’s also been building community amongst medical device industry founders in the area, so we’re kindred spirits in trying to connect more people here for greater support, encouragement and advantage. Derek is exactly the type of entrepreneur we need to support, encourage and provide "unfair advantage" to for creating an innovative company here in Orange County.
Travis Lindsay - CSUF Startup Incubator, Professor, Titan Angels
Richard Sudek - Executive Director of UCI Beall Applied Innovation
Dick Gochnauer - Co-founder, CEO Leadership Alliance, Orange County
Tony Smith - Co-founder, CEO of Restaurant365
Scott Hamilton, CEO of Executive Next Practices Institute (ENPI)
Sean Conrad, CEO of Internet Marketing Association (IMA)
Shawn Wehan - Co-founder / CEO, Givsum
Dalip Jaggi - Vincit; OC Tech Happy Hour; Coded in OC
Bill Carpou - CEO, OCTANe
Dan Rodrigues - Founder, CEO of Kareo
Andrew Lyon - Founding Dean, Fowler Engineering School at Chapman
Ray Grainger - Co-founder/CEO of Mavenlink
Michael Sawitz - Fast Start Studio
Scott Fox - Orange County Startup Council
Kyle Kamrooz - co-founder of Cloudvirga
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