Dr. Richard K. Koehn is the president and CEO of SentrX Animal Care Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah, a start-up company devoted to delivering cutting-edge animal care products.
After graduating from WMU, Koehn earned his doctorate from Arizona State University and went on to teach at the University of Kansas for three years. He accepted a professorship in ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1970 and spent the next 22 years of his career there. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Koehn served as the dean of biological sciences and was the founding director of the university’s Center for Biotechnology for New York State.
In 1992, Koehn was appointed vice president for research and professor of biology at the University of Utah, where he worked until 2001. He then became president and CEO of Salus Therapeutics, an oncology drug company acquired by Genta Inc. in 2003. One year later, he co-founded SentrX Surgical, a medical device company and a spin-off of research at the university. As president and CEO of SentrX Surgical, he negotiated a major investment by a leading venture group that resulted in the creation of Carbylan BioSurgery and SentrX Animal Care, which also was founded on technology from the University of Utah.
Credited with advancing science and technology in Utah both as a research leader and entrepreneur, Koehn is a recipient of that state's Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology. He has received other honors, including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, a NATO Senior Science Fellow and an Ernst & Young's “Entrepreneur of the Year."