A Warren County Entrepreneur: Phillip H. Morse Keynote Speaker at EDC Warren County Annual Luncheon, May 13, 2016 Phillip H. Morse said starting his medical device company in Queensbury in 1969 and perfecting his revolutionary Morse Manifold still used today in coronary angiography “was a very slow and painful process the first few years.” But by the time Morse sold his NAMIC USA Corp. to Pfizer in 1995, the company employed more than 800 people locally and manufactured a wide range of medical devices with operations in Puerto Rico and Ireland. “I never did it for the money. I just thought about the product, making it better, better and better,” he said. “Personally I lived the American dream. I had so many great people working for the company.” Morse was one of the leaders in the development of Catheter Valley, the region’s original “Tech Valley.” He started his career in the medical device world in 1966 as a salesman for U.S. Catheter and Instrument Corp. in Queensbury (now CR Bard). He covered the Midwest and drove to regional medical centers and hospitals to sell catheters and other medical devices. He tells the story of watching a medical procedure in Pittsburgh where the catheter didn't work. The device was taken apart and Morse discovered it had blood blocking it from a previous procedure. “It could have killed the patient,” Morse said. Morse started working on a new catheter concept in 1967 that eventually became the Morse Manifold. Once NAMIC took hold in the market, it expanded to two facilities: Glens Falls Tech Park (off of Dix Avenue and currently a manufacturing site for AngioDynamics) and a state-of-the-art building along the Hudson River at Pruyn’s Island in Glens Falls. NAMIC is now part of AngioDynamics, which has operations in Queensbury and headquarters in Latham. Morse is currently vice chairman of the Fenway Sports Group. He has been a Red Sox partner since 2002. He grew up in the

Boston area and attended the University of Maine where he played baseball. After retiring from NAMIC in 1995, he founded Heritage Creations, Inc. a group of companies that provide products and services to private, public, and resort golf courses and pro shops worldwide. Morse lived in Glens Falls for many years and still has a seasonal home at Assembly Point on Lake George. Phil and his wife, Susan Keene Morse, and family currently live in Jupiter, Florida, with other homes in Boston and Maine. His three grown daughters all attended Glens Falls High School. The Morse Manifold was the first transparent fluid delivery system for coronary angiography and continues to be used in between 60 and 70 percent of all cardiac catheterization procedures. Morse said he had a lot of help as he developed the manifold, including Julio Sosa, MD, at Albany Medical Center. Dr. Sosa would try Morse Manifold prototypes at the hospital and suggest improvements to Morse. "He was the most amazing person and physician," Morse said. In 2004, Morse donated $1.5 million to Albany Medical College to establish the Sosa Academy at the college to train medical students to become more compassionate and responsible to their patients. David Sheridan, who was a catheter pioneer in the Glens Falls and Argyle areas, also helped Morse in the early years. "He was an entrepreneurial genius. We developed a good relationship," Morse said about Sheridan, who is sometimes called the Catheter King. In 2005, Morse transformed 43 acres of wooded property near Glens Falls into the Morse Athletic Complex with a field house, nine tennis courts, two baseball fields, three softball fields and four fields for soccer and lacrosse and donated it to Glens Falls High School. Morse grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts, not far from Boston. In addition to his generous gifts to institutions in the Capital Region, he made a gift in recent years of an artificial turf stadium field to his alma mater, the University of Maine. Morse retired from the board of directors of Evergreen Bank, a division of Banknorth, N.A. and was a former director of the Business Council of New York State Inc.