Learn to Enjoy the Climb

When Stephan Baccan, area sales director in the Southeast in the Tissue Technologies division, was asked to bethe focus of ourJuly colleaguespotlight, he providedthe perfect introduction with hisadvice to someone joining Integra-"think about your legacy here and work backwards. If you are looking to be great, recognize the difference between being great for one year vs. being consistently great. The consistently high performers are just built differentlywith their dedication and output."

At Integra, Stephan hasalways felt that he could affect changeby speaking up with a good solutionto help solve a complex problem.This has helped him feel part of something bigger than his own role.Since joining the companyin 2009, Stephan has had five different roles- account manager, regional team leader, regional business manager, national business development managerand currently, area sales director. What hehaslearned along the way is that he couldnothave taken on thesenew roles without the help of many amazing peers and leaders, such as his fellow area sales directors- Rob Thuman, Bethany Mackey, Corey Diehl, enterprise director, John Quirkand leaders Bob Davisand Chris Bartlett,whoare even better people.

This month,the talent development team launched a new professional development series called Knowledge Bursts. The first Knowledge Burstsession focused on self-awareness. Coming up through the sales organization, Stephan has honed his self-awareness and has grown accustomed to dealing with setbacks and at the same time manybreakthroughs in his career.As he shared, "I am someone with a 'pretty excitable personality' and have had to teach myself to remain level-headed. That means never getting too up after the wins and never getting too down after the lossesor when facing challenges. Sales is not a destination game; it'sa never-ending climb. Learn to enjoy the climb and you'llbe much happier."

Stephan'sprofessional development stemmed from simply asking to be involved, beingcurious, reading (a lot),askingthoughtful questions, and collaborating!In his opinion, collaborationis the hardest thing to achieve in business withvery few peoplewhoare actually goodat it. Good collaborators have high levelsof emotional intelligence and equal measure of workplace intelligence. If you can seethrough the lens of those whom youaretrying to collaborate with,you can find a mutual win that perpetuates that collaboration. Most importantly, and key for Stephan,is collaborating with people who arenotafraid to challenge him and vice versa. Stephanalso is not afraid to admit where he needs to learn more. For example, one of hisinsecurities before he became a regional business manager was contracting considerations, so he set out to learn as much as possible on this. This helped catapult him into the national business development manager role three years later. His ability to 'lean in' helped him progress his career opportunities.

While Stephan has built a successful career over the last 15 years,heisthe first to advocate for work/life balance with a focus on his family and his favorite hobbies - hiking, biking,and vacation. He loves spending time with his wife and daughterand just recently celebrated the graduation of his little brother, whohehas been mentoring for the past 15 years as part of the Big Brothersof America program.

Stephanis also very proudof the rich historyof our company as we celebrate our 35thanniversary.His most memorable momentsarehearingabout themany patientstories from surgeons andhow they have used our productsto help improve their lives. To seethese patients move forward with their quality of life is a beautiful thing. While the Tissue Technologies team has faced its share of challenges, Stephanwould like to remind people of how compelling the Integra business is with our leadingproducts and how well-positioned the company is for the rapidlychanging wound reconstruction landscape. As Stephanshared, "unfortunately, with the increase indiabetes and other chronic diseases, I see the patient populations that we help to treat increasing over the coming years. If we can harness our technologies across the different sites of care into an increasing patient population, I can see a future where we exponentially help restore even more patients' lives."