Kindberg is the first person to fill the CEO slot at the Memphis, Tenn.-based firm since June 2007, when former CEO Jim Phillips became vice chairman of the company. Al Gossett filled in as interim CEO and board chairman until Kindberg was chosen to lead the firm.

Company founder Herb Zeman was ousted from Luminetx in 2007. He told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that he was fired from his research job and banned from its building after speaking in anger about going to a competitor.

Zeman has been critical in news accounts of the way the company has been managed and has admitted to “butting heads” with executives. He told the Memphis Daily News that Luminetx has been too slow to update and improve the technology he invented that enables health care professionals to see veins under patients’ skin. Zeman is now the subject of an investigation into the dissemination of trade secrets to competitor AccuVein, a Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.-based company that is launching a product this year that is similar to Luminetx’s VeinViewer, a $25,000 device that uses infrared light and computer technology to highlight blood vessels hidden underthe skin.

Luminetx also is suing two former executives—Roxane Bischofberger and Greg Candelmo, the former vice president of sales. Candelmo now works for AccuVein.

In addition to the changeover in its top spot, Luminetx also has experienced turn-overs in the chief operation officer position as well as top research and sales positions. Executives, however, hope the appointment of Kindberg will bring some stability to the company and quell the turmoil surrounding former and current employees.

Before joining Luminetx, Kindberg served as division president for Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Teleflex Medical. He also was manager at various healthcare companies, including New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson.

Luminetx was founded in 2001 as Conenhill Biomedics and changed its name to Luminetx Corp. in 2005.

Medical technology company Kinetic Concepts Inc. has increased the size of its board of directors from 10 to 11, and has appointed Craig R. Callen and Carl F. Kohrt to serve as directors.

Callen will serve as a member of the board’s Nominating and Governance Committee, and Kohrt will serve on the Compensation and Technology committees.

“Craig and Carl both bring a great deal of finance and management experience to our board. They also understand the critical importance of innovation to our healthcare system,” said Ronald W. Dollens, board chairman of the San Antonio, Texas-based company.

Callen previously served as senior vice president and head of strategic planning and business development at Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc. He also was a member of Aetna’s executive committee.

Before he joined Aetna, Callen was managing director and co-head of U.S. healthcare investment banking at Boston, Mass.-based Credit Suisse First Boston, a financial services company. He also was co-head of healthcare investment banking at New York, N.Y.-based Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette prior to its acquisition by CSFB.

Kohrt recently retired as president and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit charitable trust formed in 1925.

While with Battelle, Kohrt was in charge of six national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy. He also managed 23,000 staff members and $4.8 billion in annual research and development. Prior to his tenure with Battelle, Kohrt served as executive vice president, assistant chief operating officer and chief technical officer for Rochester, N.Y.-based Kodak.

Laser device marketing and manufacturing company Spectranetics Corp. has appointed William Jennings and Anne Melissa Dowling to its eight-member board of directors.

The two appointments bring the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company back into compliance to meet the NASDAQ stock market rule that requires a majority of the company’s board of directors to

be independent.

Jennings retired from New York , N.Y.-based accounting firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers in 1999, where he served for more than 28 years.

He spent 21 years as a senior audit partner, serving several of the firm’s largest accounts, and seven years developing and leading a risk management and internal control consulting practice. From 1985 to 1991, Jennings held a senior administrative executive position at the now-defunct New York, N.Y.-based Shearson Lehman Brothers and served as chief financial officer at Des Moines, Iowa-based Bankers Trust Company.

He serves on the boards of Stamford, Conn.-based Silgan Holdings Inc., a manufacturer of consumer goods packaging products, and Fishkill, N.Y.-based Axcelis Technologies Inc., a provider of equipment and service for the semiconductor equipment industry.

Dowling most recently was senior vice president for strategy of the U.S. Insurance Group at Springfield, Mass.-based Mass Mutual Financial Group, a financial services company, from 2006-07.

From 1996 to 2006, Dowling built Mass Mutual’s Large Corporate Markets Division, which served professional groups, employers and high-net-worth individuals and families with executive benefit program design, balance sheet management, benefit funding and advanced estate planning tools.

Previously, Dowling was chief investment officer at Hartford, Conn.-based Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co.

Cardiac device maker Abiomed Inc. has hired Michael Howley as vice president and general manager of global sales and marketing.

Howley brings more than 20 years of healthcare sales and marketing management experience, as well as a significant background in commercial sales at Wau-kesha, Wis.-based GE Healthcare, to his position at the Danvers, Mass.-based company.

From 2006 to 2009, he was general manager at GE Healthcare, overseeing the Americas X-ray and Interventional Radiology division.

Howley developed strategic marketing campaigns designed to drive sales and X-ray portfolio adoption.

“An experienced senior executive, Mike has demonstrated his ability to grow revenue, gross margin, and market share, while adapting to different distribution models and technologies. He will be a highly capable contributor to the further adoption and utilization of our heart recovery technologies,” said Michael R. Minogue, Abiomed chairman, president and CEO.

Howley also was general manager for clinical information systems and was the Americas sales manager of functional and molecular imaging at GE Healthcare, where he led a hybrid model of sales specialists.

Dune Medical Devices, a developer of cancer detection products, has tapped William Densel as president of United States operations and chief business officer.

Based in New York, N.Y., and Israel, Dune Medical Devices develops and commercializes intra-operative devices for the detection of cancerous tissues. The company’s first product, the MarginProbe, is focused on breast cancer surgery.

The MarginProbe comprises a sterile handheld probe and portable console. When the probe tip is applied to an excised lumpectomy segment, radio frequency signals are transmitted into the tissue and reflected back to the console where they are analyzed using a specialized algorithm to determine whether the tissue is cancerous.

“With our extensive U.S. pivotal trial under way, Dune is building its presence in North America. Bill’s background, skill and dedication will be a major asset in our efforts to build our U.S. operations and global commercialization capabilities,” said Dan Hashimshony, Dune Medical Devices CEO.

Densel most recently was vice president of marketing for the GYN Surgery Division of Bedford, Mass.-based Hologic Corp. He has more than 16 years of sales and marketing management experience in women’s health and a range of other surgical specialties.

During his tenure at Hologic, he also managed the company’s brain tumor radiation therapy business. Prior to Hologic, Densel held senior management roles at Natick, Mass.-based medical device maker Boston Scientific and Cambridge, Mass.-based Genzyme Biosurgery, which develops product lines for osteoarthritis relief, adhesion prevention, cartilage repair and severe burn treatment.

ArthroCare Corp. has hired Todd Newton as senior vice president and chief financial officer.

“We are fortunate to have a seasoned veteran like Todd as part of our team while we continue to work through the review and restatement of our past financial results. Todd’s broad range of financial, operational, strategic and accounting experience makes him an excellent addition to the company, and I know that he will be an asset as we work through our ongoing process and beyond,” said David Fitzgerald, acting president and CEO of Austin, Texas-based ArthroCare.

Newton served in various executive officer roles at Calgary, Canada-based Synenco Energy Inc., an energy development company, from 2004 to 2008. While there, he served as president and CEO.

Before joining Synenco Energy, Newton served in various roles at New York, N.Y.-based international firm Deloitte & Touche LLP from 1984 to 2004. He spent 10 years there as partner (1994 to 2004). At Deloitte & Touche, Newton was responsible for delivery of the firm’s audit and advisory services to a number of its large, multinational public company clients.

ArthroCare designs, develops, manufactures and markets surgical instruments.

ConforMIS Inc. has named two industry veterans to the company’s management team. Robert Phelps has been appointed senior vice president of sales, and David Cerveny has been hired as vice president of intellectual property and general counsel.

“With the introduction of the iUni unicompartmental and iDuo bicompartmental knee resurfacing implants, we have seen a strong and accelerating interest in our technologies with over 250 active surgeons,” said Philipp Lang, CEO of Burlington, Mass.-based ConforMIS Inc. “Bob Phelps and David Cerveny enable us to strengthen our unique position within the orthopedic industry as the only company offering an entirely patient-specific approach to the knee replacement market.”

Phelps joins ConforMIS with more than 25 years of medical device sales, distribution, marketing and business development experience.

Most recently, Phelps served as the vice president of corporate distribution at Warsaw, Ind.-based Biomet, a medical device maker that focuses on commercial execution strategies across strategic business units.

He also was senior vice president of sales for the company’s division involved with spine, trauma, osteobiologics and sports medicine products, and area vice president for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions in the joint reconstruction franchise.

Prior to Biomet, Phelps was vice president of sales and marketing at Rockland, Mass.-based Biosphere Medical, a startup company, where he helped establish the use of microsphere technology with interventional radiologists and neuroradiologists. At New Brunswick-N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson, where he began his career, Phelps held various senior executive roles including vice president of group contracting and vice president of sales for the orthopedic business.

Cerveny will manage ConforMIS’ legal affairs as well as expand the company’s intellectual property portfolio and patent strategy.

Prior to joining ConforMIS, Cerveny was the chief intellectual property counsel for Burlington, Mass.-based Palomar Medical Technologies Inc., which makes laser lighting systems. Cerveny managed a patent portfolio there.

Prior to Palomar, Cerveny was a senior attorney in the intellectual property practice at New York, N.Y.-based Proskauer Rose LLP and a partner at Washington, D.C.-based Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.