Don Milder

This case presents a study of Don Milder’s path to entrepreneurship out of business school. He began his post-business school career in a corporate development role at Dynatech Corporation. At 27, he was offered the opportunity to run a small division, TriMed, based in Huntington Beach, CA. When he arrived at TriMed, Milder learned that the company’s revenues were on a path to zero; it had lost its exclusive worldwide distributor; its founder was working 500 miles away from the company’s core operations, and the FDA had issued a recall on its primary product. In order to successfully execute a turnaround of TriMed’s operations, Milder must first develop a plan for turning around the company, maintain productive communications with the corporate office, deal with the founder and his questionable business practices, and conduct layoffs.