Cover Story: Learning To Fly

An Uncommon Individual

Being named the national Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year is an achievement reserved for pre-eminent figures in business. Susquehanna University trustee and 1965 alumnus Richard E. Caruso is among this select group. The award has been described as the Nobel Prize of the business world, and an examination of Caruso’s life proves that he painstakingly earned every ounce of honor that comes with the distinction.

Richard E. Caruso ’65

The son of Italian immigrants, Caruso has espoused the entrepreneurial spirit that defines America from a very early age. From selling newspapers on the beaches of the Jersey Shore at nine years old to creating a new field of medicine, Caruso has always achieved what others thought unattainable.

“Impossible is not a word in my dictionary,” Caruso says.

Prior to founding his regenerative medicine company, Integra LifeSciences, Caruso had a successful management career with LFC Financial Corp. However, his financial success did not give him a sense of personal accomplishment. “The world thought I was more successful than I did,” Caruso says.

To redefine himself, Caruso set lofty criteria for his next career. His goal has been to do something intellectually challenging, work with leading-edge technology, and collaborate with people he likes and respects to accomplish something important that will benefit mankind while also creating interesting career opportunities for others.

Such an effort was the creation of the Uncommon Individual Foundation. The foundation helps people “find and release the uncommon individual in themselves” and enables them to become “the entrepreneur of the enterprise of their own lives,” Caruso explains.

Putting this philosophy into practice, Caruso created Integra LifeSciences, addressing the need for medical science to develop technology to replace body parts that become damaged, diseased or worn out. He collaborated with two medical researchers working on an extra-cellular matrix technology and provided the laboratories, manufacturing facilities, and sales and marketing team necessary to develop and market the technology.

Despite the medical profession’s opinion that there were insurmountable obstacles to the technology’s implementation, Caruso’s resolve to make the impossible possible resulted in an FDA-approved product (Integra Artificial Skin) that allows burn victims to regenerate new skin. That technology led to the development of DuraGen, which allows the protective covering of the brain to regenerate itself after surgery, and NeuroGen, which can regenerate peripheral nerves that have been severed.

Acquisitions of manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies have added to the Integra portfolio of therapies, which now address a broad range of regenerative medical needs. The company now does business in more than 100 countries, with annual sales approaching $400 million and a market capitalization of $1.2 billion.

Despite the company’s healthy bottom line, Caruso says, “Financial success was not the goal but rather the reward.” More important to Caruso was making a difference in the lives of others. “Everyone is born with certain assets, and all of us have an obligation to use those talents for the good of mankind,” he says.

Today, Caruso divides much of his time between Integra business matters and his Uncommon Individual Foundation to ensure it remains a useful entity for entrepreneurs in the years ahead. His other entrepreneurial work includes investments in touch-screen voting machines and in the Coal Township-SEEDCO Industrial Park in eastern Northumberland County, Pa.

Being named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year has been another enterprise in and of itself for Caruso. In the seven days marking EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, he traveled cross country twice to address students and their mentors at no less than 19 colleges and universities. In addition to spending a full day with Susquehanna students, Caruso presented at institutions such as Stanford, Temple and the University of California at Berkeley.

Making such commitments is but a recent example of Caruso’s longstanding support for students that includes establishing the James W. Garrett Endowment Fund, founding the Football Alumni Association, providing the leadership gift that resulted in construction of the James W. Garrett Sports Complex, and serving on the board of trustees.

True to the entrepreneurial spirit, Caruso describes his service and philanthropy as giving forward rather than giving back. “I think of everything I do as moving forward. So,when I give, I’m giving forward. I’m making an investment in the future of human beings,” he says.

Click here for video and audio recordings of Richard Caruso’s recent visit to campus, part of Susquehanna’s observation of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA.