Alumni Spotlight – Bryan Nicholson ‘98

Bryan Nicholson freely acknowledges that every step of his career in the fascinating field of cutting-edge medical technology has been guided by a belief that, no matter what he is doing, he can do better with hard work. He attributes this competitive passion, in part, to the mentoring of his Susquehannock English teacher, Joan Kling. “She was always telling me to push myself,” he recalls. “I wasn’t in the top English class, but at some point I realized I wanted to go to college and beyond. Mrs. Kling was a big part of me getting there.”

As you would expect of a competitive person, Bryan was active in varsity sports, and his Susquehannock career included baseball, basketball, and golf, although he focused on baseball in his junior and senior years. Part of his plan was to continue playing as a left-handed pitcher, at West Chester University, where he enrolled after his Susquehannock graduation in 1998, but an arm injury put an end to that.

Bryan was no stranger to hard work as a student, and he held down a variety of odd jobs, beginning at age 12. His early work resumé includes time at a pizza shop, a landscaping company, and a shooting range. During college summers, he worked 60-hour weeks on a drilling crew for the Army Corps of Engineers. His earnings helped pay his way through West Chester University, where he had the option to graduate a term early in 2001. His Bachelor of Science degree was in Marketing and he stayed another semester to pursue a double major in finance, for which he fell two courses shy.

In his senior year, he obtained a Marketing internship with Benét Laboratories, a weapons manufacturer, in Watervliet, N.Y., an experience that helped him land a job as Executive Sales Representative at Hershey Foods Corporation after graduation. “To go where I wanted to go,” he explains, “I knew I had to start with a Fortune 500 company.” Elaborating, Bryan refers to the Ivy League career model, where one starts with the largest company first. He attributes much of his career planning to his father. “He was an accountant by trade, and always pushed my limits of achievement in a balanced and practical way.”

From Hershey, he went to a sales position at Bayer Healthcare, working out of the Harrisburg Area. It was here that his interest in the medical field was piqued. He found it challenging and set out to learn everything he could. In 2005, his parent company was sold and he made a career move to Sanofi-Aventis, where he held various executive sales and leadership positions, an international firm with a plethora of product lines. It was in this period that Bryan earned his MBA at Penn State University, developed a network of industry-wide contacts, and continued to expand his expertise in the medical technology sector.

In 2010, he accepted a position as a Territory Manager with C. R. Bard, Inc. a medical device development and manufacturing firm. Bryan began to specialize in critical care devices, like those that help regulate patient temperature. In 2012, Bard purchased Medivance – a medical device start-up company with an impressive disruptive technology – and the company turned to Bryan to develop its D.C./Baltimore market area.  In 2014, Bard created a position for Bryan as the National Account Manager for its temperature management division.  This led him to work with the most academic hospital systems across the United States and become involved in the International Market.

Susquehannock High School, West Chester University, and Penn State University enabled Bryan to prepare his medical sector career. He says, “Paying for an MBA out of your pocket is a huge investment, well worth it; I just wanted to have an organization see that value in my work.”

Bryan is married to Kristin Nicholson and they live in Annapolis, M.D.

Thanks to Bryan Nicholson ’98 for making us Warrior Proud.