Dave Dufour

Even as a kid, I was interested in why things work the way they do. I grew up in Marblehead, Mass., and I can remember taking apart a broken weed wacker to figure out why the string wasn’t feeding correctly. Ultimately, I wasn’t able to get that weed wacker back together—but I learned a lot in the process, and I satisfied my curiosity. My dad is an engineer, so maybe I get my “need to know” from him.

Years later, I graduated from the University of Vermont with a mechanical engineering degree. I wasn’t really thinking about working in biotech until I interviewed with Lyndra and realized that the company’s goals align with my own. Everyone who works here is driven by curiosity, and every day we are pushing towards improving the way patients take their drugs. It might sound cliché, but it really is incredibly motivating to be in the company of people who are genuinely excited about what they’re doing.

In addition, the people at Lyndra are remarkably resilient. There are definitely situations where we try to push the boundaries and then have to stop and reevaluate because one aspect or another isn’t performing as well as we expected. At times like these, we have to keep going forward, keep exploring the unknown—even when there’s cloudiness about the exact path. But that suits me perfectly. I’m a very competitive person, and I’ve been a downhill skier almost all my life. I enjoy taking different paths, racing to the finish, and then trying to figure out how to do it better next time. Working here satisfies that drive, the same one I had back when I was a kid, taking things apart in my the garage.