Engineering Hope

After losing a son to SIDS, a Georgia State alumnus channeled his grief into saving lives

Thirty-five years ago, in June 1970, Pete Petit's infant sone, Brett, died in his sleep. In an instant, Petit's life was turned upside down, and he and his wife joined the ranks of thousands of parents who lose their children each year to crib death and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.

Petit was 30 years old, an engineer working as a project manager at Lockheed in Marietta, Ga., with bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was grief-stricken, and in his anguish, he did what he was trained to do — he asked questions to try and understand what happened. How common is SIDS? Was it preventable? And could he help others avoid what his family was going through?

Through research, Petit learned that hospitals relied on expensive monitoring units to help prevent deaths in newborn babies. But at the time, there weren't smaller, more affodable home versions available for purchase. To make such a unit available to the public, he had the know-how to design it, but he realized there were other skills he lacked. And that's where Georgia State University came in.

"I had a master's in engineering but no formal training in business," he says. "I didn't know what a balance sheet was. I needed to understand what it took to run a busness from a financial standpoint. Georgia State University was a significant resource to me."

Petit threw everything into his new idea, resigning from Lockheed in January of 1971 and taking night classes at Georgia State to get his M.B.A. It wasn't easy, but while he was still in school, Petit founded the company that would later become Healthdyne Inc. "I was young, energetic and very naïve about the rigors of starting a business," he recalls. "But being naïve was a good thing. If I had known what the next five years would be like, I wouldn't have been so enthusiastic."

Building A Dream

Unlike the seemingly endless supply of cash available to dot-com businesses in the 1990’s, venture capital was almost nonexistent in the early 1970’s. But thanks to one of Petit’s M.B.A. professors, Al Clarke, who taught finance, the fledgling entrepreneur received especially good advice. “Dr. Clarke was excellent in class,” Petit recalls. “But he also took the time to give me good solid personal advice about the practicalities of raising capital.

That advice turned out to be crucial, as did Petit’s business training from Georgia State. “I don’t remember much about being an engineer and my role in product development. Mostly I remember raising money!” says Petit, of the early days spent getting the business off the ground. “We were always living on the ragged edge, but I always managed to find the next series of investors.”

After earning his M.B.A. in 1973, Petit remained at the helm of Healthdyne, which turned its first profit four years later. In 1981, the company went public, and things only went up from there. Eventually, Healthdyne passed the entrepreneurial years and in 1995 split into three publicly traded companies.

It’s a fact of entrepreneurship that the individual who starts a company is rarely the same person best suited to lead it to profitability, especially to an IPO and beyond. But Petit is one of the rare individuals who seems able to do it all, and he credits his Georgia State education.

“Georgia State gave me the foundation to run a business, and made a big difference in those early years,” he says. “I didn’t make fatal mistakes that businesses usually make early on, mistakes that they can’t recover from.”

“A new company is often created by a visionary,” he adds. “Someone who can synthesize, see random variables and focus it into a meaningful enterprise. I kept to my training and kept getting good results.”

Giving Back

Petit waded into philanthropy in 1985 with his first alma mater, Georgia Tech. He gave $1 million to fund the Distinguished Chair in Engineering in Medicine, held by Professor Robert M. Nerem, who today is also director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. About 10 years later, he gave another $5 million to endow the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and in 2002 pledged $3.3 million to help construct the building that houses the institute.

“I saw what a cornerstone investment could do for a public university and for Georgia,” he explains.

In time, he turned his philanthropic interests toward Georgia State, where he had learned all about the basics of business. “I was interested because I saw the same factors I saw at Georgia Tech many years ago,” he says. “I knew the same kind of investment at Georgia State could result in significant improvement for students and have a major impact, bringing research grants and other opportunities here.”

As a result, Georgia State President Carl Patton announced last March that Petit will donate $5 million toward the construction of a new science teaching laboratory building on campus. To be located on the corner of Decatur Street and Piedmont Avenue, the Parker H. Petit Science Teaching Laboratory will be the first building in a planned $250 million University Science Park.

The Petit building will be an interdisciplinary, state-of-the-art laboratory providing teaching and research facilities for 5,300 students majoring in science programs to be housed there, including astronomy, biology, cardiopulmonary science, chemistry, computer science, geology, nursing, nutrition, physical therapy, physics and psychology.

“Pete’s gift is transformational,” Patton said. “It will help us expand our already leading work in the sciences, allow us to prepare more excellent scientists and will enable us to leverage even more public and private funding for science education and research.”

The Drive To Succeed

Today, Petit is the CEO and chairman of Matria Healthcare Inc., one of the three companies that resulted from Healthdyne’s 1995 split. “After 25 years I thought I could semi-retire,” he says. “But five years ago, I stepped back in as CEO and chairman of Matria to get it re-energized.”

Matria is a “disease-management” business that helps organizations improve the health of their chronically ill employees and subsequently reduce their healthcare costs. Its nurses are in continuous contact by telephone with workers to coach them on how to better manage their diseases and to assist their physicians in meeting national health standards. And in a market in which 30 percent of medical expenditures are deemed unnecessary – caused by wasteful over- and under-utilization of the health care system – it’s a profitable business venture.

Matria’s most recent press releases have been filled with news about adding contracts, and the company’s stock soared by 75 percent last year alone. The company also has an impressive market cap over $700 million.

But Petit says he’s focused on more than personal and corporate success. He’s focused on giving back. “Georgia State helped me transition many years ago from an engineering manager into a health care executive,” he says. “Thanks to some time watching Atlanta grow, serving on the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce board of directors, and working with great leaders like Carl Sanders and Carl Patton, I have a great respect for what institution of higher education can do for our businesses and for Georgia’s economy.

“Georgia State and our other universities provide the state with a flood of talent,” he says. “As I focused on my good fortunes and what they did for me in my career, I just decided I wanted to give some back.”

Petit knows that none of his good deeds will resurrect his son, but after 35 years, one can still hear the love and longing in his voice. Yet, in his drive to succeed, the conscientious businessman seems to have one overriding ambition – a fire in the belly to be industrious and profitable, yet all the while helpful to his state, his alma maters and people he doesn’t even know.

A few months ago, the legislature approved $2.7 million dollars to allow Georgia State to begin architectural design for the Parker H. Petit Science Teaching Laboratory building. That means soon, and for generations to come, literally thousands of science students at Georgia State will have a reason to say “thanks” to Pete Petit.

Article written by Russ Moore. Photography by Meg Buscema. Georgia State Magazine, Fall 2005.