Mr. Petit currently acts as Chairman and CEO of MiMedx Group (NASDAQ: MDXG) in Marietta, and remains active in his community in Georgia.
ATLANTA, GA, July 12, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to name Mr. Parker Holmes "Pete" Petit a Lifetime Achiever. An accomplished listee, Mr. Petit celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Mr. Petit celebrates a long and successful career as an engineer, investor, and founder of the multi-million dollar medical technology company Healthdyne in 1970. His success was born from a moment of profound grief, when in June of 1970 his infant son succumbed to crib death. Mr. Petit set out to make sure no other infant would die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and he developed the Infant Monitor to alert parents if their child was in danger. In doing so, he also built the wildly successful Healthdyne, which became three different public companies. Now in his late 70s, Mr. Petit acts as Chairman and CEO of MiMedx Group (NASDAQ: MDXG) in Marietta, and remains active in his community in Georgia.
Mr. Petit learned to build machinery and devices as a student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, working toward a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1962 and an MS in Engineering Mechanics in 1964. From 1964 to 1967, he served with the U.S. Army in aviation related functions. He would return to Atlanta to a promising career with Lockheed-Georgia in 1968, where he served as an engineering project manager. In 1968, Mr. Petit published the "Primer on Composite Materials" and held patents in this field. In 1970, tragedy struck.
"Initially, I was very much motivated by grief," Mr. Petit said in a 1988 interview. "My initial focus was to develop a device that would prevent the same kind of thing from happening to other families..." Not only did Mr. Petit succeed, the company Healthdyne was established to manufacture the Infant Monitor, and Mr. Petit served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Petit has been flooded ever since with poems, letters, and cassette recordings, a testament to the thousands of lives the monitor has saved. He was instrumental in founding the SIDS Alliance to fund groups across the country to help battle the disease.
For his efforts in preventing SIDS, La Societe Francaise De Bienfaisance awarded him the 1981 Humanitarian Award. He was named a Georgia Tech Distinguished Alumni, and he was inducted into the Technology Hall of Fame of Georgia in 1994. To better run his company, Mr. Petit earned an MBA from Georgia State University in 1973, and in 2007, he was inducted into the Georgia State Business School Hall of Fame. In 2008, Mr. Petit founded The Petit Group as an investment firm.
Healthdyne became an international healthcare company that manufactured high technology healthcare devices, provided healthcare information systems and technology, and provided healthcare services and disease management. The Healthdyne related companies grew to annual revenues in excess of $1 billion. In order to increase shareholder values, Healthdyne was split into several publicly traded companies through spinouts to shareholders in 1995. Subsequently, the home infusion therapy subsidiary was sold to W.R. Grace Corporation. In 1996, Healthdyne Maternity Management was merged with Tokos Medical to form Matria Healthcare. In 1997, Healthdyne Technologies was merged with Respironics which was later sold to Phillips Healthcare. IN 2001, Healthcare.com, which was formerly Healthdyne Information Enterprises, merged with XCare.net Corporation to form Quovadx.
Through Mr. Petit's vision and leadership, Matria Healthcare transitioned into the industry's only fully integrated health, productivity and disease management organization providing employer and health plan clients access to wellness programs, nurse triage services, decision support programs, disease management programs for chronic diseases, case management programs for acute and catastrophic conditions and health data integration and informatics. Matria Healthcare was sold to Inverness Medical Innovations in May of 2008 in a transaction valued at over $1.2 billion.
Mr. Petit funded a professional chair for "Engineering in Medicine" at Georgia Tech in 1986. In 1995, he endowed the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences at Georgia Tech. In 2001, he helped fund the Biotechnology Building at Georgia Tech which has his name and in 2004 the Science Center Building at Georgia State University which also has his name.
Mr. Petit served on the Board of Directors of Atlantic Southeast Airlines for 16 years until it was acquired by Delta Airlines, and Norrell Corporation, which was acquired by Spherion Corporation. Mr. Petit is a member of the Board of Directors of the Georgia Research Alliance, which is chartered by the state of Georgia to promote high technology and scientific development in the state, and he is a 1994 inductee into the Technology Hall of Fame of Georgia. In October of 2011, Mr. Petit was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering.
For his humanitarian efforts and business acumen, Mr. Petit was selected for inclusion in numerous volumes of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, Who's Who in the World, two volumes of Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, and the 1992 volume of Who's Who in Science and Engineering. He enjoys flying, painting, and his business activities. Mr. Petit and his wife Janet happily enjoy the company of their three children and seven grandchildren today.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Mr. Petit has been featured on the Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievers website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
About Marquis Who's Who :
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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