Rodney D. Chipp Memorial Award
James H. Borowick
Medtronic
For pioneering partnerships that support emerging women engineers; for leveraging personal experience to drive cultural change; and for creating a stellar example of diversity in action.
James H. Borowick is a functional engineering director for Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) business. Since 2009, he has led engineering organizations that participate in the development of Medtronic’s implantable cardiac product platforms and is responsible for the engineering environments leveraged across multiple business units. His organization provides design environment solutions that enable electrical, embedded system, mechanical design, and computer-aided engineering modeling. These environments enhance design quality and maximize engineering productivity, saving millions of dollars in overall development costs.
Borowick’s early career at Medtronic included engineering assignments in quality and product engineering, and he soon moved into various R&D management positions. By 2005, Borowick had become a product development director and successfully led a cross-discipline engineering team that was involved in bringing to market a family of implantable cardiac defibrillators and resynchronization devices that significantly improved the safety and efficacy of patient treatments.
Previously, Borowick spent 10 years at Honeywell, becoming a product engineering group leader before joining Medtronic in 1992.
Borowick believes in giving back to his alma mater, and helping drive change for women in engineering. He is the founding member of Medtronic’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) outreach and partnership initiative with the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering (CSE) and their similarly titled WISE program.
He has worked to establish a collaborative relationship between these organizations based on shared goals centered on improving the retention of women in engineering programs. This unique industry/academia collaboration now consists of a mentorship program, networking and professional development events, sponsorship of a WISE Living and Learning Community (LLC) for first-year students, internships, scholarships, and more.
Importantly, the program offers CSE’s female students access to Medtronic’s women technical employees. Each year, more than 85 women scientists and engineers at Medtronic serve as mentors, event volunteers, etc. helping students “connect the dots” between their academic aspirations and real-life engineering careers.
The program’s results have been stellar. More than 350 students and Medtronic employees have been a part of the partnership, and it continues to grow each year. By 2019, the university’s retention of women in the partnership’s WISE Living and Learning Community was 98%, and for three years in a row, 50% of Medtronic’s hires for student employment opportunities have been women. Borowick, his team, and his partners from CSE presented the program at WE19.
Borowick also leads efforts to establish Medtronic’s business presence within CSE undergraduate programs and department Industry Advisory Councils. Under his leadership, Medtronic has become a top employer of CSE graduates.
He is a recipient of Medtronic’s SWENet Technical Male Contributor of the Year award, Star of Excellence award, and CRHF Boundary Breaker award, along with various Honeywell Outstanding Technical Achievement awards.
Borowick earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and traveling with his wife and four sons.