Barrett Robotics Technology

Executive team

Bill Townsend is President & CEO of Barrett Technology, which he founded in 1988 to advance the state of human-machine interaction. He has a dozen issued patents in the US, Europe, and Japan and won the prestigious Robotic Industries Association Joseph Engelberger Award in Technology for his 1987 design of the first haptics-capable robot. This device (the “WAM® arm) was also chosen as the world’s most advanced robot in the Millennium Edition of the Guinness Book of Records. He earned his PhD and MS degrees in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (now CSAIL) and a BS in mechanical engineering at Northeastern University.

Matt Rigby has expertise in the treatment of adult and pediatric populations with neurological disorders. After a five-year run as a practicing Occupational Therapist, he worked in sales at Johnson & Johnson for three years, and then joined Bioness for 15 years, where he ultimately led a sales team of 30 as VP of business development. He has served as a board member for non-profit organizations and is a published author in the field of Occupational Therapy Assessment. He earned his BS in Behavioral Sciences and Health at the University of Utah and an MS in Occupational Therapy at the University of Illinois Chicago.

CJ Valle is a Barrett veteran. He oversees engineering development, production, support, and regulatory compliance of Barrett’s line of medical products. He worked previously at Philips Healthcare, where he gained valuable expertise in medical-device design, manufacturing, and regulatory compliance. He also has invaluable start-up experience, having co-founded a company out of college to make an internet-connected water meter. He earned his BSE in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Before college, CJ was a member of Barrett’s exclusive high-school internship program, where he helped reorganize the company’s manufacturing processes.