Meet our CEO, Dr. Graham Snyder

Father. Engineer. Physician.

I went to school for twenty-three years to learn how to save people. I was the son of an engineer, a boy scout, a kid that liked to make things right. In the summer of 1999, fresh out of medical school and newly married, I moved to New York to train as an emergency specialist in some of the busiest hospitals our nation offers. So many people needed help urgently, and I was thrilled by the speed and capability of our medical system, by the tools and tests, the lifesaving treatments right at our fingertips.

My wife and I had our first child in 2003 and our second two years later. Perhaps it was parenthood changing my perspective, making me more cautious around water, but this was about the same time that I noticed how many children were suffering permanent injury or death from drowning.

Unlike most emergencies that bring people to our hospitals – car accidents, falls, heart attacks, allergic reactions – drowning is one thing we can’t fix. Once a patient arrives, the damage is done, often irreversible and though drowning is the leading cause of death in children under five, adults and seniors are also at risk.

What I know as an emergency physician and as an advocate for public health is that the most important need for preventing drowning is early swim lessons and parental and lifeguard vigilance. Despite the heroic job that lifeguards and parents do in ensuring that swimmers are safe, swimmers are still lost every year, and drowning remains the number-one killer of children under the age of five.

Dr. Courtney Mann was by my side one day as we stood over a little girl, a seven-year-old, and told her parents there was nothing more we could do. Despite all our training, we felt powerless. And so we founded Seal Innovation, to prevent the emergency from occurring in the first place.