S.K. (Funk) McGarvey '74
	Alumni Newsmakers   S.K. (Funk) McGarvey '74   Oyvind Solvang '86   Joe Shacter '87   Troy Anderson '98   David Jehn '90   Eleni Rossides '01

Interstellar insight

by Deborah Leigh Wood

Space technology has given us Tang, freeze-dried ice cream and a host of other products. Add to this list LADARVision.

What sounds like the latest in home entertainment equipment is actually an eye-tracking device to improve the precision of LASIK surgery, which reshapes the cornea to give patients better vision. A team including S.K. (Funk) McGarvey '74 developed and commercialized LADARVision by adapting technology used by NASA in delicate space docking maneuvers and missile tracking. (LADAR is an amalgam of laser and radar.)

In recognition of her contribution to spinning off a space technology that enhances the quality of life on earth, McGarvey was part of the team inducted into the 2004 Space Technology Hall of Fame last year at the National Space Symposium, both located in Colorado Springs.

The induction was "very gratifying," says McGarvey, who is a nationally recognized expert in the development of ophthalmologic technologies. "In attending the NASA meeting and ceremonies," she says, "I was struck with how the NASA management showed great respect for the ability of a private enterprise team to move technology NASA had invested in to a commercial reality."

The Space Technology Hall of Fame was developed in 1988 by NASA and the Space Foundation, a national not-for-profit organization, to honor innovators who have transformed space technology into commercial products.

McGarvey worked on LADARVision while consulting for Autonomous Technologies, which was acquired first by Summit Technologies and then by Alcon, which are all medical device companies whose products are used in ophthalmic surgery.

McGarvey says she has spent most of her career at the crossroads of marketing and R&D. While working at Baxter, her first job after earning an undergraduate degree in chemistry, she says she sought a better understanding of the business world. In fact, Baxter agreed to pay her Kellogg School tuition, making her the first woman to have her MBA fully funded by Baxter.

"What I learned at Kellogg made a huge difference in understanding the logic of company decisions," McGarvey says. "Having an MBA gave me the confidence to lead and to assume you have the authority to get something done until someone says you don't."