‘SUCCESS IS PROGRESSIVE’ Mario Ball ’07 on Pace to Meet Greater Challenges in his Remarkable Career By Shandra Hill Smith
O
N THE SURFACE, a well-known medical device and the packaging of a popular snack may not have an obvious correlation. But in Mario D. Ball’s world, it is safe to say one directly influenced the other. During his younger years, says Ball ’07, “I would buy a bag of chips and think ‘What material is this bag made out of?’ I was thinking of those concepts at an early age. I was like nine years old thinking like that.” Today, Ball is a clinical engineer in the Atlanta Office for Medtronic, Inc., a Minneapolis-based medical technology company. He is a pacemaker sales representative who spends his days in operating rooms assisting cardiologists and electrophysiologists with implanting pacemakers and defibrillators in
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heart patients. “Once the device has been implanted, I’m in total control,” explains Ball. “I have to make it work. I do all the initial programming and troubleshooting for the device.” Ball was a straight-A student in high school, but also excelled in several other arenas. He was named an All-America football player, elected SGA president, was a weightlifting champion, and was crowned homecoming and prom king. During the summer, he gained exposure to life away from his rural roots, becoming involved with programs such as Upward Bound and Educational Talent Search, and participating in math and science programs at Morehouse and the University of Tennessee. “That really kind of stimulated me in a way that I had never had,” he says.