The Green Sun Team

dedicated to changing lives

The Green Sun Medical team brings 75 years of combined medical device experience, 40 years of development experience and 35 years of commercial business experience. Each contributor offers a combination of large and small business venture experience. Including, multifaceted customer interaction, industry and organizational knowledge.

Chris Gaul – Product Development Engineer

AEGEA Medical, Symantec, Enlightened Inc.

Since completing his degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chris has worked in multiple engineering fields, building his expertise along the way. He has led the mechanical design for a secure Wi-Fi router at Norton and IoT occupancy sensors at Enlighted. He performed test and validation engineering for an innovative endometrial ablation device at AEGEA Medical.

Fun Fact: Chris likes to write and record music in his spare time and has 5 guitars hanging on his dining room wall.

Courtney Sheedy – Director of Patient Experience

Corelink, Zimmer Biomet, Biomet, Lanx, Joimax, Alphatec

Courtney serves as a voice for patients from a personal and company perspective and brings big-company project management, marketing, brand planning and team-building experience to the table. She has also had an invaluable personal experience with scoliosis having lived with significant scoliosis since age 14. She has more than 13 years dedicated to the spinal medical device market, serving in development and marketing. She has provided upstream and downstream leadership to product management teams launching many emerging technologies.

Fun Fact: Courtney has lived in over 30 residences in her lifetime. From birth to almost 40, she has moved homes about every year to year-and-a-half, attending 12 schools starting in kindergarten through her bachelor’s degree.

Jamie Haggard – CEO, Cofounder

Corelink, Bacterin, Biomet, Lanx, Globus, Synthes, Zimmer

Jamie has a background in selling, raising capital, development of critical executive relationships and a track-record in closing strategic business transactions. He leads the company’s vision. He has been solely responsible for fund raising, as well as creative, technical and managerial direction of the company. Before Green Sun Medical, Jamie had a 20-year long career as a medical device sales representative which led to his role as sales Vice President. He has worked for start-ups and major corporations helping sales leaders launch disruptive technologies into the surgical environment. In addition, he has been in leadership roles training hundreds of spine surgeons on evolving procedures.

Fun Fact: Cap’n Jamie has a reputation for firing canons from his pirate ship on unsuspecting diners in Sausalito, CA.

Matt Thompson – CTO, Cofounder

Reduction Technologies, Aesculap

Matt is a prominent biomedical engineer with nearly 20 years of medical engineering, sales and management experience. He has lead cross-functional teams and been responsible for delivering millions of dollars of projects on time and within budget. Matt founded Reduction Technologies Inc. around a concept he developed for a non-fusion implant to scoliosis. He also contributed as an Engineer at Averna. The Averna company was focused on building custom test systems (orthopedic devices, ventilators, dialysis machines and insulin pumps). He managed projects from development to launch, revised the company’s hardware design process to increase efficiency and standardization and passed quality system audits from Philips, Covidien, Medtronic and others. Additionally, he consulted for Fixes 4 Kids, a company developing a device for the pediatric orthopedic market. 

Fun Fact: Matt signed up and completed a class on how to be a rodeo clown and was gloriously trampled by a large bull.

Sami Peterson – Social Media Developer

SHIFT Scoliosis

At 15 years-old, Sami founded a nonprofit organization called SHIFT Scoliosis after enduring a severe form of progressive scoliosis as a younger child. She endured severe deformity, pain, and multiple medical complications throughout childhood. In 2012, she underwent complex spinal fusion surgery to stabilize her spine and was finally given back the life she desired. This gift of a second chance inspired her to help others with scoliosis. Since 2012, she has made that her mission and done just that. SHIFT blossomed from a small awareness initiative to an organization that reaches thousands of people through its education, awareness and outreach programs. Today, SHIFT has a large and growing global network of supporters which includes children, adults, teachers, doctors, companies, and advocacy leaders. In 2019 Sami became an official member of the GSM team, tasked with growing awareness of the company using social media tools and campaigns.

Fun Fact: Loves swimming in the ocean with sea turtles and traveling – even with spinal fusion there is no slowing Sami down.

Susan Castellon – Administrative Coordinator

Susan has over 20 years in program management and administration experience. She has worked for utility companies, state governments and small non profits. In her role at Green Sun she utilizes her skills in bookkeeping, grant management, document coordination and budget oversight.

Fun Fact: Susan enjoys visiting National Parks and has visited 26 of them leaving 34 left to visit.

Where does the name Green Sun come from and what is the logo about?

Most of the development work takes place at the engineering office just north of San Francisco. While visiting the bay, Jamie saw the sun set on the ocean under perfect conditions. The sun was the same all day until the last moment when he saw one of the wonders of nature, a green flash. He thought it was representative of how scoliosis treatment hasn’t changed, and the company was now creating a wonder that would awe the scoliosis community. While Green Flash didn’t seem like a proper name, Green Sun Medical was something that could be easily remembered.

The logo was developed by Matt Faye at the design firm Gravitation. He was tasked with creating a logo that represented the brace rings around the spine and the sun turning green during a perfect sunset. We think he captured it perfectly.