Randy Geissler

Randy (Randolph) Geissler (born July 21, 1960) was raised on a dairy farm in Tilden Township outside of Chippewa Falls, WI and graduated from University of Wisconsin/River Falls in 1982. He is notable for technical & market development of the g.TAG™, a low frequency RFID device used for animal traceability, the r.TAG™, a high frequency long range anti-collision device used for extensive animal management and market creation of the implantable identification microchips for tracking animals.
Corporate Growth Strategy
Geissler buys core businesses, grows them to profitability and then invests in a new technology. He began with ear tags, followed by microchips, biosensor chips, and GPS systems. He is known for building emerging technology from the cash flow generated by the previous technology like building blocks. Geissler grew Digital Angel using a similar business plan to that for the company's ID chip, marketed under several different names worldwide including HomeAgain®.
Geissler’s vision and business execution are responsible for driving the implantable microchip from an idea to production and worldwide distribution. There are more than 100,000,000 microchips implanted in animals and fish worldwide for identification and tracking.
Geissler twice took his company public and has broad experience in product development, application of advanced technologies in new markets. Other expertise includes creating marketing alliances, strategic intellectual property and patent portfolios.
Markets
Livestock Management
The National Institute of Animal Agriculture, a livestock industry trade group, reports that the market for electronic identification of livestock is large. NIAA cites the electronic ID in a strategic plan to cope with catastrophic diseases such as hoof-and-mouth.
The device registers livestock information and quickly isolates any problem discovered in an animal from birth through slaughter and distribution, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The chips are molded into ear tags for livestock and implanted in managed fish worldwide, providing instant electronic identification.
Veterinary Science Management
The Bio-Thermo chip was first marketed for pets in the United States to manage disease and when economically viable to be distributed for livestock use. Production began in 2005. The electronic ID tags for pets are passive and activated externally by a monitoring device. Veterinary scanners could weigh the animal, obtain rectal temperature, and record the data.
Livestock Management
Food Supply Integration
SCI (Supply Chain Integration) is associated with activities downstream of food production, but also involves raw materials coming into a facility. Raw material variability poses the greatest challenge in producing finished goods of consistent quality. Vertical integration is a result, with pork and poultry as notable examples.
Co-mingled livestock from multiple producers in multiple locations requires reliable systems to accurately identify the source and age for each animal in the commercial food chain. Tracing all beef produced in the United States, for example, from 'food production to fork' is vital to preventing the spread of disease.
RF-based identification tags injected subcutaneously are an improvement to ear tags but have limited function. In response to the most important parameter in monitoring livestock; i.e. temperature, Geissler’s company developed Bio-Thermo, a temperature-sensing, implantable microchip.
Livestock Production Improvement
Hogs are a highly bred species, and quick diagnosis of a sick animal is critical to avoid infection of the entire herd. Changes in body temperature are great indicators of health problems, but breeders aren’t able to capture that information. The only way to get it is with a rectal thermometer. Breeders are able to get periodic temperature readings from sows, but you can’t go into a pen with 50 feeders and collect the data.
With Bio-Thermo, workers simply pass a handheld scanner over the animal or have the animal walk through a portal scanner. The system captures the temperature and matches it to the specific animal.
RFID Tag Fish and Game Tracking
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses millions of chips to track salmon on the brink of extinction in the Northwest. Chips help detect environmental factors. Critical questions for which chips are useful include, for example, whether dams prevent fish from returning, did something happen in the ocean, or is temperature critical?
Government Regulations
FDA and USDA require extensive toxicity studies and other safety studies to ensure that if the device breaks or a human being ingests it, no harm will come to either the human or the animal.
To capture the correct temperature, the device must be subdermal. The tag is injected in the outer portion of the ear. You now have a traceability device that can follow that animal all the way to the packinghouse. The harder part in all this are the scanners that communicate with that tag, and that’s primarily what is covered by the 20 patents associated with this system.
Passive Integrated Transponder Tag Technology
In 2007 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved g.TAG™ electronic ear-tags for use in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). TRI-MERIT, a single-source animal identification and data management system, is the only USDA-interim approved animal identification database offering NAIS-approved ear tags integrated within the system. The TRI-MERIT system is powered by Global Animal Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Schering-Plough Animal Health. The NAIS approved ear-tags complement the TRI-MERIT system, which is also USDA approved as a Process Verified Program (PVP) for age and source verification.
The implantable device looks like the lead inside a pencil and is smaller than a grain of rice. An antenna coil is wrapped around it and is hooked up to a unique, integrated circuit. When this inductively coupled transponder tag enters the sphere of a reader, the scanner pushes energy through the antenna to power up the integrated circuit, which in turn wakes up other sections of the device to grab data such as temperature. It then broadcasts that data to the scanner.
The electronic circuits of the device are dropped into a glass vile, sealed with lasers and sterilized it prior to implantation.
Corporate history
Geissler Corporation
Randolph Geissler is Chief Executive Officer of Geissler Corporation and PositiveID Corporation Animal Health Division, Minneapolis, MN. He was a Founder and CEO of Geissler Technologies (2004-2008) when he sold the company's expansive product development pipeline.
Geissler Corp. specializes in miniaturization technology and applied advanced sensors to deliver condition-monitoring systems,as well as RFID systems for animals. Geissler technologies include, among others, radio frequency identification, optical imaging, and artificial antibodies. The company specializes in managing companies and technologies involved in the veterinary science field by selectively discovering or creating technologies and strategically introducing those assets to the markets.
Randy Geissler’s vision and implementation are directly responsible for propelling the implantable microchip from "just an idea" to its highly successful current status of more than 100,000,000 microchips in animals worldwide for identification and tracking.
Fearing Manufacturing
Digital Angel began in 1945 as Fearing Manufacturing, a St. Paul-based company that made plastic ear tags for livestock. The business had difficulties in the mid-1980s as it invested heavily in insecticide enhancements to its ear tags. In 1987, Geissler and his partners bought the company. Geissler shut down all insecticide research and focused on marketing Fearing's staple product — ear tags. Within two years the company was profitable.
Destron Fearing Corporation
Randy Geissler was a Founder and the CEO of Destron Fearing Corporation (1993-1999).
In 1993, his private company was again taken public on NASDAQ as Destron Fearing when Fearing bought Destron, Boulder, CO, a struggling microchips R&D company. The new Destron Fearing recorded heavy losses with the release of the pet ID chip. By 1997 the company was again profitable. The company was renamed after its latest product, a wireless GPS pager used to track people. It was taken public on AMEX as Digital Angel Corporation in 2003.
Digital Angel Corporation
Randy Geissler was the CEO of Digital Angel Corporation (2000-2003).
Digital Angel (www.DigitalAngel.com) is a leading provider of radio frequency identification (RFID) and Global Positioning System: see navigation satellite. Digital Angel is the owner of a majority position in VeriChip Corporation (NASDAQ:CHIP).
Digital Angel was the first company to have its electronic RFID livestock tagging system approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for use in the NAIS in 2006. The NAIS is a cooperative program between state and federal governments and the livestock industry to help trace, manage and eradicate animal diseases like BSE.
The acquisition not only brought new technologies to Digital Angel, but also a solid contractual relationships with distributors that provide data systems support used to implement animal management programs in support of current and future food safety regulation needs. The technologies expanded the breadth of food safety animal data capturing connectivity.
In 2005 and 2006, the United States Congress (through annual appropriations bills) acknowledged RFID technology and specifically Digital Angel's RFID technology as a viable and logical solution to the country's health concerns related to BSE and other infectious diseases.
Digital Angel is also the first animal tag manufacturer to be designated as an Animal Identification (AIN) tag manufacturer by the USDA, which signifies that the Company's tagging system is capable of identifying livestock with the unique, lifetime animal identification number that is being established as a national standard through the NAIS.
Digital Angel technology has potential to detect diseases by, for example, monitoring for abnormal cancer-causing enzymes.
Product Description
The subdermal microchip implant developed by Digital Angel/Destron Fearing is implanted in more than 100,000,000 pets, livestock and fish worldwide, providing instant electronic identification. A glass tube — with a microchip and antennae inside (the size of a grain of rice)— is inserted just beneath an animal's skin much like a vaccine injection. Its electronic circuitry operates only when it's scanned by a handheld device, which emits a low-frequency radio signal to activate the chip.
In 2005, Digital Angel won USDA and FDA approval to market the Bio-Thermo microchip, which gauges an animal's body temperature. The company looks ahead to future biosensor chips that track an animal's hormonal changes, blood pressure and, eventually, disease.
Patents & Applications
# RADIO FREQUENCY ANIMAL TRACKING SYSTEM - RFID system provides a transponder that can communicate over at least two different frequencies
# RADIO FREQUENCY ANIMAL TRACKING SYSTEM - RFID system provides a transponder having a power store that can be recharged when located within a defined distance
# ELECTRONIC TAG - an electronic tag including an insulating cap
# ANIMAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM INCLUDING RADIO ANIMAL TAG AND ADDITIONAL TRANSCEIVER(S)
# HOSPITAL INVENTORY MANAGEMENT INCLUDING RADIO TAG(S) AND ADDITIONAL TRANCEIVER(S)
# DISPENSING CONTAINER - container has a hollow interior divided into a first chamber and a second chamber

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