As a young girl, Ann Holder loved to watch the F-16 jets taking off at the airbase where her father worked as an airforce engineer. The impression this made on her helped shape her future.  For Ann, the road led to West Point and eventually a posting in Germany as an ordinance officer in the U.S. Army.

Through her work in engineering and operations for the military, Ann discovered her interest in tech and achieving success on hard missions despite having little to no help or guidance. She loved solving problems. 

When she left the military, she took on a number of roles in well-known companies and built lasting relationships, which led to the opportunity to work in the medical field at Medtronic. In healthcare, Ann was very active and curious. She asked questions, formed strong bonds with experts in the field, and in the course of her work, she stumbled upon another hard problem that she wanted to try to solve.  

Ann founded Odonata Health which is focused on using cutting edge technology to change the way fetal and maternal health is administered. 

“My passion is in affecting outcomes worldwide,” Ann says. “And for so many different reasons, you know? Some are based on C-section rates, some are women that aren’t getting monitored at all. Some [patients] just live too far away from the hospital and it’s too hard for them to get to the hospital. So there’s a lot of different reasons why I’m doing this and why I have this passion. And it’s really about bringing a technology to the market that can create change.”

On this episode, Ann walks us through her road into West Point and the challenges she faced. She also discusses her vision of a world where technology and health care combine for the betterment of maternal and natal care. 

Learn more about Ann and Odonata by clicking here.

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Find Your Mission is presented by WeWork in partnership with Dell Small Business. 

Thank you again to WeWork! Veterans in Residence, a partnership of WeWork and Bunker Labs, is a six-month startup incubator and leadership program that provides veteran and military family members the community, business support, and workspace to help launch and grow their businesses.

To learn more about WeWork and the Veterans in Residence program, visit we.co/veterans. 

Also, thank you to our friends at Dell. Dell offers small business advisors to help any small business owner manage and understand all the ins and outs of technology in their small business. To speak with an Advisor today, Call 877-BUY-DELL or click here.

This podcast was created by the team at Mission. If you want to hear more from Mission, be sure to check out Mission.org.