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Dr. Thomas J. Fogarty, a longtime Portola Valley resident who became as well known for his Fogarty Winery as for his invention of the balloon catheter, a groundbreaking medical device, died on Dec. 28, 2025, in Portola Valley. He was 91.
Born on Feb. 25, 1934, Dr. Fogarty grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father died when Dr. Fogarty was young, so he learned how to fix things around the house. At 15, he developed his first invention, the centrifugal clutch for motorized scooters, which is still the industry standard over 70 years later.
Dr. Fogarty’s entrepreneurial spirit carried into adulthood. In 1961, he created his most notable invention, the balloon catheter, before he had even completed medical school at the University of Cincinnati. The tool, which helps remove blood clots, was the first minimally invasive surgical device.
Dr. Fogarty’s impact is “almost immeasurable,” said Fletcher Wilson, one of Dr. Fogarty’s mentees at Stanford Medical Center. Dr. Fogarty served as a professor of cardiovascular surgery at Stanford for about 14 years. “His inventions are still used … millions of times a day,” Wilson said.
He also spent thirteen years as the Director of Cardiovascular Surgery at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City before returning to Stanford in 1993.
It was the first in a long list of Dr. Fogarty’s medical device inventions, including a tissue heart valve and an aortic stent graft, which are credited with making surgeries safer, more cost-effective, and more accessible.
In recognition of his numerous scientific contributions, Dr. Fogarty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Technology and Innovation by former President Barack Obama in 2012. He was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and granted the Medical Design Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lemelson-MIT prize, and the Icon in Surgery Award from the American College of Surgeons.
He believed in empowering the next generation of healthcare inventors and established Fogarty Innovation at El Camino Health in Mountain View to provide mentorship to others seeking to push the boundaries of medical technology.
“Dr. Fogarty’s career is a testament to a lifetime of dedication to improving patient care,” Fogarty Innovation said in a statement announcing his death.
His support “meant everything to me,” said Wilson, the founder of Intervene, a medical device company. Dr. Fogarty was Intervene’s first major investor.
Dr. Fogarty’s mentees, which Wilson dubbed the ‘Fogarty entourage,’ learned the importance of “paying forward this idea of mentorship,” he said. “All the mentees of Fogarty have now become mentors to others.”
Dr. Fogarty’s influence on the medical community was not limited to his inventions. “He cared deeply for people,” said his eldest son, Tom Fogarty Jr.
Even though his father was a highly esteemed professional, his dad didn’t take himself too seriously and had a sharp sense of humor, Fogarty Jr. said. When he was a kid, he remembers driving with his father past another father and son flying model airplanes. Dr. Fogarty loved model planes, so he pulled over to watch, while explaining to his son how they worked. A local resident arrived soon after, upset that the model planes were creating a ruckus. A couple of days later, Dr. Fogarty bought model airplanes and passed them out to all of the neighbors in the community.
“He was a problem-solver for sure. He could be a problem creator, too,” said Fogarty Jr.
In his free time, Dr. Fogarty loved fishing, hunting, and all things outdoors, which fueled another business venture, Thomas Fogarty Winery, in Woodside.
“He is unlike any person I kind of ever met,” said Nathan Kandler, the general manager and winemaker at Fogarty Winery. “You see the word ‘iconoclast’ thrown around, and I think that’s very true,” but he was also “incredibly down-to-earth,” he said. “In an era where a lot of people talk about greatness, he really did a lot of things that are gonna last and really actually benefit society.”
Dr. Fogarty is survived by his wife, Rosalee; their four children, Thomas James Jr., Heather Brennan, Patrick Erin and Jonathan David; and 10 grandchildren.
Brianna Sosa is a Stanford Rebele intern working with Embarcadero Media Foundation.
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Nice story. Thank you for publishing this.
If the medical device industry had a Mount Rushmore, Tom Fogarty would be at the very top.