CONMED Manager Spotlight – Darren Guse

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Darren Guse, our Director of Information Systems Security, who has been with CONMED for 27 years!! Over the years, Darren has seen a lot of changes at CONMED, but the one constant has been the culture! “It’s kept me here for 27 years! We improve the quality of life for patients by reducing the stress on the body. The products we make improve patient outcomes.” This is something that Darren thinks about during the bad times and the good! “People want to be part of our culture.”

In the nearly three decades that Darren has been with our IT team, he has worn several hats. From starting as a consultant, where he planned to work temporarily for 3 months, moving to a full-time role in Local Area Network (LAN) support, moving up to supervisor, manager, senior manager and finally, his current role as, Director. He loves that he can help find solutions for problems; sometimes before people even knew that they had them! Being a part of this growth story is something that gets him out of bed every day.

I asked a question of "How IT has changed since he started until now" and honestly was shocked to hear how big the infrastructure is! CONMED has gone from 3 servers, 2 midrange systems in 1 data center to more than 400 servers and 21 data centers. This is some serious growth!! The world of IT is always changing with the new threats that happen consistently, but the goal of this team is to stay on top of them and always be learning.

A very important question I asked Darren, “Why would someone want to join your team”? Darren’s response is everything I thought it would be and more. “We are a team of highly trained technical people with a great camaraderie. Everyone is able to put their DNA in the solutions we provide. Everyone is given the tools they need and understand the framework on how we operate as a Medical Device manufacturer and publicly traded company, which enables them to contribute to the success of the group, the organization and our customers!”