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By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News
January 6, 2007
Paul Leo Ray, an award-winning bioscience entrepreneur, died Thursday at his Boulder home after battling cancer. He was 60.
His death came less than six months after he won a lifetime achievement award from the Colorado BioScience Association for his contribution to the state's biotech and medical device industries.
Mr. Ray was only about 5 feet tall, but he epitomized the creative spark and doggedness needed to become a successful entrepreneur.
"Up until a couple of weeks ago, he was coming into the office every day," said Mark Lupa, a director and investor in Mr. Ray's latest endeavor, Surginetics, a developer of medical devices for electrosurgery. "He really wanted to continue working and was very vibrant."
One of Mr. Ray's favorite lines was: "I was 7-foot-tall when I started this job," said Lupa, a principal of Boulder-based High Country Venture. "Forget about the business stuff. He was enjoyable, he was smart, he was very generous with his time. He was a small man with a big heart."
Mr. Ray already was slowing down some because of his health when he was interviewed last summer by the Rocky Mountain News. But he didn't sound like someone dwelling in the past.
"I don't spend a lot of time looking back," Mr. Ray said then. "I've packed more into my professional life than I can even believe."
His first job was selling breast implants to plastic surgeons. He became an entrepreneur after losing a job in a corporate downsizing.
Over the years, Mr. Ray founded or co-founded several startups including Allertech, an allergy lab-testing company, and Image Guided Technologies, a medical technology company later sold to Stryker for $14 million.
Other jobs included chairman of the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute, director of the state's Office of Life Sciences and Biotechnology and founder of the Colorado Biomedical Venture Center.
Mr. Ray was praised for his key role in developing the state's bioscience plan in 2003.
It was quite a career for an Iowa farm boy who was told by his sixth-grade teacher that he wasn't cut out for college. Mr. Ray went to college anyway, graduating from Ball State University.
"That teacher was a big motivator to him," said Larry Nelson, who interviewed Mr. Ray several times for a book on bioscience entrepreneurs. "I don't think you'd find a person who didn't admire (Mr. Ray's) spunk and spirit."
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Nelson and Denise Brown, executive director of the Colorado BioScience Association, both said Mr. Ray typified the successful serial entrepreneur.
"He was successful and at the same time very well-liked and personally very dear to people," Brown said. "He's really going to be missed."
Nelson, co-founder of the Denver-based Internet radio station w3w3, said he last interviewed Mr. Ray at length last summer at Fitzsimons while he was getting chemotherapy. He said Mr. Ray emphasized the key to building a company was getting the right people.
Mr. Ray was a people person himself, known for chatting with everyone from scientists to the hostess of his favorite Asian restaurant.
"Paul was the life of a party; he was a fun guy," Lupa said.
In addition to his daughter, Jennifer Ray, survivors include wife Paula Ray, of Boulder, and son Cameron Ray, of California.
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