{"id":61986,"date":"2012-08-17T18:50:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T18:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/community\/?p=2905"},"modified":"2012-08-17T18:50:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T18:50:18","slug":"saving-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2012\/08\/17\/saving-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Face"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jennifer Whitestone<\/p><\/div>\n

Total Contact Inc. is more than a business to founder Jennifer Whitestone: it\u2019s a mission.<\/p>\n

Whitestone made the leap from federal employee with job security to startup business owner after using her biomedical engineering skills to help someone who had been badly burned in an accident\u2014someone, as it turned out, she had known most of her life.<\/p>\n

Since 1998, Whitestone\u2019s small company in Germantown, Ohio, has been using surface-scanning technology to produce precisely fitted masks that promote healing and reduce scarring of patients who have suffered facial burns.<\/p>\n

The company is a commercial outlet for medical technology Whitestone developed as a biomedical engineer in the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.<\/p>\n

Whitestone abandoned a comfortable career to pursue an unusual business that depended on new technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge leap,\u201d she agreed. A federal civil service job had a lot to like. \u201cIt was a decent salary. It was retirement and benefits and insurance and all those things. Job security,\u201d she said. \u201cI enjoyed my work there, but I just felt really driven to take this product to market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her work at WPAFB was just what Whitestone had spent years preparing to do. Raised in Lebanon, Ohio, she attended her father\u2019s alma mater, Virginia Tech, to get a bachelor\u2019s degree in engineering science and mechanics with a concentration in biomedical engineering. After earning her B.S. in 1986, she went to work at the base and began working on her master\u2019s in biomedical engineering at Wright State. She graduated in 1995.<\/p>\n

In her first job, Whitestone worked with dummies\u2014crash dummies, that is. \u201cThey\u2019re used in the car industry to study car crashes,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the Air Force, they\u2019re used to determining what the body goes through in ejection scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitestone wired up dummies with test instruments, gathered data in tests, and then used the data in computer models. \u201cIt was fun. It was a real hands-on job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her next assignment was in human engineering, which introduced Whitestone to three-dimensional surface scanning applications. \u201cIt was brand new, and I really became enamored with the world of 3-D scanning,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Whitestone was working in the field of anthropometry, which involves precisely measuring the human body. Her research was aimed at making better-fitting clothes and protective gear, such as oxygen masks for pilots.<\/p>\n

\n

The work utilized the medical imaging analysis Whitestone had learned at Wright State in her biomedical engineering program, and she saw potential medical applications for anthropometry\u2014using surface scanning with lasers to measure wound healing, for example.<\/p>\n

It was work that drew the interest of burn therapists from Miami Valley Hospital. In 1997, Whitestone recalled, \u201cThey came to me and said, \u2018Hey, we have this patient who needs a burn mask. Do you think you can figure out how to make him one?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She had no way of knowing the patient who needed her help was someone she had known since childhood.<\/p>\n

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By precisely measuring facial contours, Whitestone\u2019s company can make masks that reduce scarring for burn victims.<\/p><\/div>\n

A burn mask reduces scar tissue buildup by pressing against the skin. Since scars grow continuously, a burn patient must wear the mask up to 23 hours per day for a year or longer. A precise fit is important for good results and comfort.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, the standard practice for making a burn mask was to cover the patient\u2019s face with plaster to make a cast\u2014a process that was uncomfortable at best and didn\u2019t result in a perfect fit, Whitestone said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy using surface scanning, we\u2019re going to capture the contours of the person\u2019s face with sub-millimeter accuracy, and then we can replicate that,\u201d Whitestone said. \u201cWe can also smooth the scars out ahead of time, so that the mold itself is a smooth representation of their face and not a scarred representation.\u201d The end result is a plastic mask that fits better and helps the patient\u2019s face heal better than earlier models.<\/p>\n

When Whitestone finally met the patient, \u201cI was shocked. I was very shocked,\u201d she said. The patient\u00a0was Jim VanDeGrift, who had coached football and\u00a0track at Lebanon High School while Whitestone was a student there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew him very well. He and his family went to our church and I grew up with his kids,\u201d Whitestone said. He had recently retired but had been severely burned in an accident with his lawn tractor.<\/p>\n

Whitestone and others who volunteered for the project scanned VanDeGrift\u2019s face with a laser and made the mask. But much of its success would depend on him. The retired coach would have to keep it on around the clock for it to be fully effective.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach VanDeGrift was a very disciplined man, so he wore the mask like he was supposed to, and I started to see over the months that his scars were receding, and it was very dramatic,\u201d Whitestone said.<\/p>\n

The experience convinced her to make burn masks for other fire victims. \u201cIt became my passion. I wanted to get the technology out to other burn patients,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She set up her fledgling company in vacant space in the former St. Elizabeth\u2019s Hospital in Dayton, then moved it to a storefront building in Germantown, near her home.<\/p>\n

Total Contact remains a small company with just a handful of employees, but Whitestone said it isn\u2019t sales or profits that drive her. \u201cThis business in many respects is a mission,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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This ear cast illustrates the accuracy of surface scanning technology.<\/p><\/div>\n

Even so, Whitestone has expanded Total Contact beyond burn masks.<\/p>\n

For example, her company recently completed a\u00a0three-year project for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to measure 951 firefighters across the country. The data will help equipment suppliers design safer and better-fitting gear, from gloves to fire engine seatbelts.<\/p>\n

Also, a joint venture between Total Contact and another small company has created five patent applications with the goal of developing new medical products.<\/p>\n

Whitestone gives Wright State a lot of credit for\u00a0her accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Wright State was instrumental. I don\u2019t think I would be where I am now without Wright State,\u201d she said. It\u2019s one of the reasons why she has stayed close to the university as an adjunct faculty member and advisor.<\/p>\n

Whitestone said her company collaborates with Wright State to provide senior design projects for undergraduates in biomedical engineering. \u201cWe give them a project and we team the students up so there are generally two or three students on a team, and they work on the project and we work with them throughout the year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great program. I just love working with the students. They\u2019re seniors, so they\u2019ve had all the foundation of engineering for the undergraduate perspective, and then we give them a real-world problem, and it\u2019s usually something we\u2019re working on at the time, so we are very interested in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I haven\u2019t gone far from Wright State,\u201d Whitestone said. \u201cEven though I graduated, I keep coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Total Contact Inc. is more than a business to founder Jennifer Whitestone: it\u2019s a mission. Whitestone made the leap from federal employee with job security to startup business owner after using her biomedical engineering skills to help someone who had … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":60302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4827,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}