Schnee spreads VeinViewer 'wow' to world

New global sales VP for Luminetx has lifelong passion for international business

The Commercial Appeal
April 29, 2008
By Daniel Connolly

Chris Schnee grew up near the U.S.-Mexico border, and his first job after college required him to spend a year of intensive language and cultural training in Japan.

He says these early experiences helped create a passion for international business. Today, he's vice president of global marketing for Memphis-based medical equipment com-pany Luminetx Corp., and he is pushing to place the firm's signature product, the VeinViewer, in markets around the planet.

"The greatest part is watching the product take life globally and seeing other people in other parts of the world say 'Wow,'" he said.

The VeinViewer uses infrared light and computer technology to beam an image of hidden blood vessels onto the skin in real time.

This means medical workers can more easily find blood vessels for injections and similar procedures, reducing the need for repeated needle sticks.

Luminetx was based on technology developed at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. It attracted widespread media attention even before its full-scale product launch in late 2006, and it went through a management shakeup in 2007 when investor and car dealership owner Al Gossett took a leading role in the firm.

Gossett has emphasized sales and marketing, and since Schnee started work in October, the firm has signed distribution agreements with firms in Hong Kong, Kuwait and Turkey. Hundreds of VeinViewers are headed overseas for demonstrations and sales, Schnee said earlier this month.

Schnee, whose name is pronounced "Shnay," said the firm hopes to enter markets like the United Kingdom and Japan. The firm will have to clear some regulatory hurdles, but has won key certifications and created an international version of its device that will likely help, he said.

Schnee, 38, was born in Temple, Texas, and grew up in Harlingen, a border town with a strong Mexican-American presence.

"Being a part of that very young bred into me a desire to have an open mind, a global, international desire, to travel, to meet, to do other cultures," he said.

He earned a bachelor's in chemistry at the University of Texas and went to work for Fuji Silysia Chemical of Nagoya, Japan.

The firm put Schnee and several other young men through a year of cultural immersion and language training in Japan before it sent them to Portland, Ore., to sell its industrial chemicals.

"It really was 10 guys from the age of 19 to 22 who ran a business," he said.

Schnee says the experience forged his love for international business and marketing tied to a technical product.

He later worked in sales at firms that included GE Healthcare and orthopedic medical device maker Smith & Nephew in Memphis.

He was working as director of marketing for Austin-based urology equipment maker HealthTronics when he learned that Luminetx was looking for a sales leader.

Schnee said he made the leaders of the privately held firm show him details of its finances and intellectual property protections before he agreed to take the job. He said colleagues still joke with him about this.

He says he and his team took a similarly hard-nosed approach toward checking out foreign firms that will distribute the VeinViewer overseas.

They selected the firm Pacific Medical Inc. in Hong Kong, a hub of Asian trade that is considered a gateway to many countries in the region. Golden Triangle, a Kuwaiti firm, will play the same regional role in the Middle East.

Istanbul-based Sanitas will distribute the VeinViewer only in Turkey. With roughly 72 million people, it's a relatively small nation, but one that Schnee says is a good market. "Their hunger for importing medical equipment is ravenous."

He and his colleagues are also promoting the VeinViewer in this country.

Contact Daniel Connolly at 529-5296. To read more stories by this reporter, click on "Contact Us" at commercialappeal.com, then click on the reporter's name.

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Luminetx target markets

Luminetx hired consulting group Frost & Sullivan to help pick its next markets to enter. Here are the top targets:

Netherlands

Canada

Japan

Germany

Mexico

Ireland

Belgium

France

Australia