07/31/2026
Medcom founders Dan Sythe, Joe Jaffe and Steve Weiss. Joe was a physicist who earlier collaborated with Dan on doppler fetal pulse detectors. He provided a personal loan to Dan to start building radiation detectors at Dan's first company. He then came out of retirement to work with Dan in forming Medcom. He was previously founder and Director of Instrument Research at Smith Kline, where he developed early ultrasound imaging devices, portable EKG machines, and the first commercial Doppler for obstetrics, the Doptone. Steve and Dan bonded doing relief projects as volunteer ham radio operators, and then collaborated on solar energy projects and radiation detectors. Some of their early instrument designs, including an instrument named the Monitor 4, are still produced today, 45 years later. Dan, Joe and Steve worked a lot of nights and weekends together over many years, across two companies, to produce high quality radiation detectors that have influenced the landscape in the wold of radiations safety. Before their collaborations radiation detectors were large and bulky, with poor battery life. Their innovations put radiation detectors into hands and pockets, with unparalleled battery life and accuracy. When the USSR was splintering there was much concern about where the nuclear materials and weapons were going. Dan, Joe and Steve worked nights and weekends with others to produce instruments to protect borders during that critical period. This was under the Nunn (Democrat) Lugar (Republican) Nuclear Threat Reduction initiatives, with cooperation from Russia and the former republics. We at Medcom miss those days when world leaders and Republicans and Democrats, worked together, despite differences, to protect their populations from the threat of nuclear terrorism and warfare.
