He has spent thirty years making factories run. His latest project fits in a hospital room and feeds people who cannot feed themselves.
The face of a turnaround habit.
In November 2025, the board of CoapTech handed Brad Kreger the keys. The Baltimore medical device company had been built by its co-founder, Howard Carolan, who stepped aside to become an advisor. Kreger walked in as the second CEO in the company's history and the first who did not invent the thing he was asked to sell.
That thing is the percutaneous ultrasound gastrostomy, or PUG. It is a way to place a feeding tube using ultrasound at the bedside, rather than booking an operating room or an endoscopy suite. More than a thousand patients have already received one. A pediatric version cleared the FDA, opening the door to younger patients.
Kreger's brief is narrow and enormous at the same time: take a procedure that works and make it routine. Expand access. Speed up adoption. Get it into more care settings. He has done versions of this before, in industries that look nothing like this one.
"I am honored to continue building from the incredible foundation that Howard has created."
"Expand access to our percutaneous ultrasound gastrostomy technology, accelerate adoption across care settings, and deepen its impact on patients and healthcare providers."
The old way of placing a gastrostomy tube often means an endoscopy or a surgical procedure. CoapTech's pitch is simpler: use ultrasound to see the stomach wall, then place the tube where you can see it, at the bedside.
Point-of-care ultrasound visualizes the stomach wall in real time, no fluoroscopy or scope required.
The magnet-aligned PUG-G system guides placement so the puncture lands exactly where the clinician intends.
The tube goes in at the bedside, including in the ICU, with the goal of cutting cost, delay, and risk.
"If you cultivate really high-quality talent, you provide them a good infrastructure and framework to operate in, and the freedom to operate within it, you can achieve really amazing things."
— Brad Kreger, on how he runs a companyKreger joined Velo3D, the metal 3D-printing company, in December 2022. The title was Executive Vice President of Operations. The job was repair work: the company had grown faster than its own systems could keep up with.
"When Benny brought me in, the company had gone through a stage of really dramatic growth, and the result of that was we grew faster than our ability to put processes, systems, and infrastructure in place." A year later, founder Benny Buller was out and Kreger was interim CEO. By June 2024, the interim tag was gone.
He is unusually frank about how hard it was. "2023 was a challenging time for us. We faced a lot of issues and challenges as a company." He also admits the company confused its own customers: "I think we've put a lot of confusing signals out." The fix was unglamorous - resolve field issues faster, win back repeat buyers, lean into space and defense where the technology actually fit.
It worked well enough that a lender who had drifted away "ultimately tuned back in and invested $5 million, so that they have confidence in us."
Figures from Kreger's 2024 interviews. Illustrative scale.
Life sciences instruments. Metal 3D printing. Medical devices. The products could not be more different. The work - making complicated things at scale, reliably - has been the same the whole way.
Two decades at the pioneering DNA microarray company. Roles spanning Director of Operations, Process Engineering, and Reagent Manufacturing.
After Thermo Fisher acquired Affymetrix, served as Director of Sequence Engineering.
Senior Vice President, Global Operations. Scaled mass cytometry production and rebuilt operational infrastructure.
Hired to consolidate processes after a period of rapid expansion.
Took the top job after founder Benny Buller's departure.
Board makes it official, citing the success of the re-alignment.
Steps in as chief executive, succeeding co-founder Howard Carolan.
His method is consistent: hire excellent people, give them a sound framework, then give them room to run. He puts the organization's goals ahead of his own profile.
He does not paper over bad stretches. He called 2023 challenging and admitted the company had sent confusing signals - then described exactly how he fixed it.
On the 3D-printing hype: the idea that "you just take what you machine before and you shove it in a 3D printer, and it just magically comes out" did not pan out. He prefers what actually works.
Both of his most recent CEO roles meant taking over from a company's founder - and being trusted to carry the original vision forward.
A bachelor's in biotechnology and an MBA. The combination explains a career spent where the science is hard and the manufacturing is harder.
He went from leading machines that print parts for space and defense to leading a device placed at a patient's bedside. Same discipline, very different stakes.
"I look forward to working with our amazing team to expand access to our percutaneous ultrasound gastrostomy technology, accelerate adoption across care settings, and deepen its impact on patients and healthcare providers."
On taking over CoapTech, 2025"We're seeing that field issue resolutions are occurring in about half the time that they did before."
On the Velo3D turnaround, 2024"We're expanding into Defense. It's a newer area for us, but one that we're uniquely suited to serve."
On finding the right market, 2024"2023 was a challenging time for us. We faced a lot of issues and challenges as a company."
On the hard year, 2024His resume reads like three careers stapled together - microarrays, metal printers, feeding tubes - held together by one skill: scaling hard-to-build products.
He joined Velo3D to run operations and was running the entire company within twelve months.
CoapTech's whole pitch is moving a procedure out of the operating room and to the bedside - the kind of efficiency problem Kreger has chased his entire career.