Kent Vilendrer is the President and CEO of ST3 Corporation. He has over 38 years of experience in the mechanical test and bioreactor equipment industry. He co-founded ST3 Development in 2002 as a company focused on the development of commercial bioreactors.

In 2004, Kent also founded Tissue Growth Technologies Corporation (TGT), a company focused on the development of bioreactor systems for research purposes. He lead the development of the DynaGen Series of Bioreactor Systems which were used by researchers throughout the world for foundational work in the development of tissue-engineered medical devices. TGT was sold to the Illinois Tool Works (Instron division) in 2013.

Under Kent’s guidance, ST3 and TGT developed new bioreactor designs for over 50 institutions including: Children’s Mercy Hospital (KS), Cook Biotech, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Scripps Clinic. These collaborations and product development efforts have provided Kent with the experience and expertise needed to generate cost effective bioreactor solutions. Kent has been awarded five US patents for bioreactor designs.

In 1990, Kent co-founded EnduraTEC Systems Corporation with his wife, Kathy and through his positions as CEO and CTO, he was the principal guiding designer for most of the company's test systems. In 2001 EnduraTEC spun off its testing services business creating Medical Device Testing Services which he and Kathy continue to manage. EnduraTEC was sold to the Bose Corporation in 2004 and renamed the ElectroForce Systems Group (ESG). ESG is now a division of TA Instruments.

Prior to 1990, Kent worked at MTS Systems Corporation and Interlaken Technology. While at MTS he held various engineering positions within their material testing division where he worked closely with customers in determining their test needs and providing targeted solutions. While at Interlaken Technology he was responsible for sales and marketing and ultimately held the position of President and CEO. He was instrumental in Interlaken’s introduction of a material test system targeted at the general purpose fatigue market.

Sandy (M.S., PhD) is a biomedical engineering expert in regenerative medicine, bioreactors and mechanical testing. Her doctoral thesis was focused on the development of bioreactors for small diameter tissue-engineered vascular grafts. She continued her postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota in heart valve and vascular graft tissue engineering while consulting for ElectroForce Systems Group (ESG) of Bose Corporation on the development of the BioDynamic Test Instrument product line. Sandy joined Bose Corporation in 2005 and spent 10 years in various roles and positions. She worked as an applications engineer, market manager for tissue engineering and biomaterials, biologics business unit manager and director of market/product vision development and customer satisfaction.

Sandy has authored several papers in peer-reviewed journals and has presented at numerous international conferences. She is also a co-inventor on several tissue engineering bioreactor patents. Sandy is actively engaged in volunteer professional activities in the biomedical field and is currently the co-chair of two task groups for standard guides for characterization of tissue engineered vascular grafts and heart valves at ASTM. Sandy is an invited reviewer of submitted manuscripts to the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Tissue Engineering Journals, and Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering. She is also a program evaluator for biomedical engineering programs for ABET, and a grant reviewer for NSF and the Regenerative Medicine Minnesota.

Sandy completed her B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering in 1998 at the National Technical University of Athens and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2003 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Greg Hoepfner is a mechanical design engineer with experience in the bioreactor, medical device testing and aerospace industries. Greg joined ST3 Development in 2014 and has been working in the development of novel bioreactor systems for tissue growth applications. Over the last several years, Greg has developed an advanced bioreactor system intended for cartilage tissue growth, bringing it from a concept phase to a full functioning prototype ready for customer testing and verification. That system is capable of independent pressure control of 12 chambers in a humidity, temperature and gas controlled environment. A more recent project involves the development of a bioreactor drive system for tissue engineered vascular grafts. That system will be suitable for a GMP facility and includes GMP-compliant disposable pumps for tissue culturing.

Greg has also worked as a test engineer with Medical Device Testing Services providing project management and test equipment fixture designs for medical device fatigue tests. Prior to joining MDT and ST3, Greg was a structural design engineer at the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. While at Boeing, Greg redesigned engine primary structures to reduce weight while ensuring fail-safe load paths and managed new product design of propulsion structures from concept to manufacture.

Greg completed his B.S. Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics degree at the University of Minnesota. While an undergraduate there he assisted in experiments and test equipment design for an NSF funded research project aimed at characterizing fluid flow conditions using tomographic particle image velocimetry.

Kathy Vilendrer is the co-founder and Executive Vice-President of ST3. She has played a key role in developing different areas of the company since it's inception in 2002. Prior to her role at ST3, Kathy also co-founded and served as President of EnduraTEC Systems until that company was sold to the Bose Corporation in 2004. She also co-founded Medical Device Testing Services and Tissue Growth Technologies and provided guidance in strategic planning, marketing, and staff development. Kathy's responsibilities with EnduraTEC, MDT, TGT and ST3 have included Executive and Operations Management, Sales/Marketing, Customer Service and HR.

Kathy has over 27 years of management experience and 12 years of experience as an educator prior to that. Kathy holds a Master's of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas, a Masters of Science in Education from the University of Minnesota and an Masters of Arts in Health Studies from St. Catherine University.

Ralph Skoe has 50 years of experience developing software and electronic control systems for advanced testing and bioreactor applications. His system controllers have been used by companies throughout the world for materials and vehicle testing applications.

At ST3 Ralph provides support for new control designs for 3D tissue stimulation systems. Prior to working with ST3, Ralph created new control products for the US and European test equipment markets. During this period he developed several generations of controllers for various test equipment manufacturers and was the first to incorporate the electronics into a circuit board that plugged into an IBM computer. Over the years Ralph has provided control technology to a number of test equipment manufacturers including Bose, EnduraTEC, Interlaken, Tema, TestQuip, MDT and others. Prior to starting his own development company in 1983, Ralph worked 16 years for MTS Systems Corporation. While there he developed computer controllers for their material test and multi-axis vehicle simulation systems.

Ralph holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota.