Earl Elmer Bakken

Earl Bakken died on October 21, 2018. Bakken, an electronics repairman who became an inventor and CEO, founded Medtronic, a medical device company, in the 1950s after he created the first wearable, battery-powered pacemaker. His interest in medical electricity led to the founding of a museum and research library that now bears his name. He was named to the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1995, and, after retiring to Hawaii, he helped run a hospital and built a sustainable residential compound there.