Rich's New Footing. (Ha! Pun. Groan.)

Well, it's high time I let the world (or at least my six oh-so-important readers) what is going on with my husband Rich. 

I've been guilty recently of a little whining on Facebook about how much I miss him when he's away, and he's been getting a little bit of flack from his friends about it.  But he is not mistreating me or the children.  In fact, he is continuing on a big adventure that started over two years ago. 

He has gone back to work full time for Ability Dynamics in Tempe, Arizona.  For the last two years, he has been working closely with the other founders of the company to develop their new Rush foot, a prosthetic foot that is made of a brand-new material and is designed mostly for active users.  The demonstration videos on their site are pretty amazing, especially this one by Lance Blair:


Lance Blair - Rush Foot Testimonial from Ability Dynamics on Vimeo.


Rich and I have shared many, many adventures together, some more challenging than others.  Separating our family into two different cities (for the time being) has been a difficult decision, lonely for both of us at times, and with challenges on both ends.  My challenges have been balancing home and parenting responsibilities, work responsibities, and doing the things that I would like to do such as summer professional development, getting to the gym, hiking, reading... it's been a lot harder to find time for myself because every time I do, I need a babysitter.  Rich will be doing a lot of travelling as the National Clinical Manager, and so I know one challenge for him is having the energy to put his heart into his job all week, travel for work and then have energy to drive back home to Tucson for the weekends.  He misses the kids, too, and hopefully me.  :)

However, I have not seen him this enthusiastic and invested in work in a long time.  He is an excellent REALTOR, but that has been a difficult road recently.  This position plays to his greatest strengths:  a sincere desire to help people have a better quality of life (which is why he became a prosthetist); a firsthand knowledge of life as an amputee and the qualities of a product that makes it both practical and pleasant to use; a thorough knowledge of prosthetics and the prosthetics business (which he has had a chance to learn even better through this process); a great personality and ability to listen and give and take feedback; a drive for success in business. 

He has actually worn and tested the various versions of the foot as the company has gone through the process of developing and refining it, and has worked closely with the CEO, the distributors and the engineers to secure investment funding, work within medicare coding guidelines and create a product that he can stand behind.  I have never seen a product built from the ground up, and it has been fascinating to see the complexity of the entire process.  Now they are working on marketing, and getting into clinics to teach practitioners and patients about the product, and to continue to get feedback on it. 

Despite my little pouts and bouts of whining, I am so proud of my guy.  He is an amazing man, and this job is perfect for him.  I have never seen him so happy at work.  I hope that if you are a prosthetist or an amputee, and you get a chance to meet him, you will also recognize how committed Rich Sainz is and has been to this foot and getting it onto folks who could benefit.

Happy walking!

Also, P.S., he wore the foot to Big Surf with the family last weekend, and it stood up fine!