William F. Northrup III received his M.D. from the University of Southern California in 1966. He was a practicing cardiac surgeon in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnestoa for 30 years with a major focus on mitral valve repair and complex aortic valve and root surgery. He received several medical device patents and commercialized a vascular connector and a heart valve annuloplasty device. He joined CryoLife in 2008 as Vice President of Physician Relations & Education where he developed a high-fidelity biological simulation model to teach cardiac surgeons the skill-sets required for complex aortic valve and root surgery, including the pulmonary autograft (Ross) procedure. He has trained 536 surgeons during these 2-day Aortic Allograft Workshops, many of which are now done in OPOs. He has been invited to 8 consecutive Thoracic Surgery Program Director (TSDA) Boot Camps to teach the anatomy of the aortic valve and root to cardiac surgery residents. He borrowed the template for the TSDA Boot Camp to create a more focused Aortic Valve and Root Boot Camp at CryoLife for 32 cardiac surgery residents over each of the past 6 years, populated by TSDA University Faculty. The 7th Boot Camp is scheduled for 48 residents in October, 2019. Through his relationships with the TSDA Program Directors, he has presented mini-Aortic Allograft Workshops in 2/3 of the Programs and has begun similar Workshops in the Canadian Academic Programs. He and his mentor, Professor, Sir Magdi Yacoub from the UK, co-directed 5 consecutive Ross Summits at CryoLife from 2008-2012. We recently changed the venue to Montreal under the direction of Professor Ismail El-Hamamsy, where live cases have been successfully added to the Program and approximately 200 cardiac surgeons have been impacted. Dr. Northrup and his wife, Joey, have been married 55 years, have 5 children and 14 grandchildren and continue to enjoy traveling extensively together.