Former Boston Scientific Corp. COO Paul LaViolette was elected to the board of directors of Thoratec Corp. at its May 13 annual shareholders meeting.
LaViolette rose from senior vice president and group president of several divisions to become the Natick device giant’s chief operating officer in 2004.
Pleasanton, Calif.-based Thoratec, which has operations in Burlington, develops devices to treat advanced-stage heart failure, point-of-care blood testing and skin incision products.
LaViolette, who landed a hefty separation bonus of more than $9 million in cash, incentives and benefits payouts from BSC after his ouster last year, stands to make at least $35,000 when he takes his seat from one of the two retiring Thoratec board members.
Each director not employed by the company gets the $35,000 retainer, according to the company’s most recent proxy statement.
And Howard Chase and J. Donald Hill, who are stepping down, leave vacancies on the compensation and corporate governance committees. Assuming LaViolette joins as least one of those, he’ll get another $6,000 (compensation committee) or $4,000 (corporate governance) plus 12,000 stock options vesting over the next four years.
Thoratec posted first-quarert sales of $89.5 million last year, up 39 percent compared with $64.4 million during the same period last year, and $5.6 million in net income, compared with a net loss of $678,000 during the 2008 first quarter.
Share were trading at $27.69 as of roughly 2:30 p.m. May 18.
