Frontier Medical Devices Inc. brings U.P. jobs

Posted: 10.22.2010 at 5:41 AM

With unemployment close to 13 percent in Michigan the state is looking for jobs and it looks like Frontier Medical Devices Incorporated is bringing them

K.I. SAWYER -- In May it was a vacant building at KI Sawyer, owned by the county and used for storage. Now it's Frontier Medical Devices Incorporated, a company that currently employs nine full-time employees from Marquette County. It's a project of Dr. Matthew Songer, the man responsible for Marquette’s Pioneer Surgical Technology.

"What we are making is products that are being planted in the human body, so there's a lot of certifications and a lot of specifications that we have to follow," said Frontier Medical Devices Incorporated President and Chairman of the Board, Dr. Matthew Songer.

And they're looking to add more to their team, 39 over the next two years to be exact. The projects they're working on right now involve improvements to the human back.

“If a person has an unstable spine and they need to have a plate, like a plate and screws, to stabilize the spine, we have a plate that will allow the screw to lock it in the angle,” Songer said. “And that's a very unique technology; there is no plate that you can just lock it in the angle."

The company is unique in the way they operate.

“We have, here, built an organization that can take something from an idea to a product and go through the conversion process,” said Frontier Medical Devices Incorporated Chief Financial Officer, John Sonderegger.

The goal of the company is simple.

"We can help other people out, we can fix other people's backs and make other people's lives more worthwhile,” said Frontier Medical Devices Incorporated C.E.O. Eric Seaborg. “And I think that's what motivates all of us here."

They hope the technologies they develop here will help people who use them to live more fulfilling lives.