Avinash (Avi) Shimoga Raju is a Project Engineer in our Maple Grove office. He enjoys the variety in his workdays and collaborating with both internal and external teams. His typical day involves reviewing drawings and specifications of equipment and systems, developing documentation, discussions with vendors and contractors, and visits to the newly constructed manufacturing wing to monitor equipment being installed. Avi joined Upsher-Smith during the pandemic, when most employees were working remotely, so he gladly joined a group of Upsher-Smith employees in October 2020 at the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota’s annual awareness walk. He spends his leisure time on hobbies including reading, watching Formula 1 races, and photography.

Carrie Kirscht is Senior Director of Financial Planning and Analysis in our Maple Grove office. She spends her days leading Upsher-Smith’s financial planning process, monitoring the cost of products and analyzing financial results. On a given day she may review the manufacturing cost of a key product, analyze results for the month or compile an expense analysis. She met her husband on a touch football team and they enjoy cheering for their son’s baseball, basketball and soccer teams. The family ends each day with a walk around the block. “It’s a tradition we started during the pandemic.” Carrie is an avid runner and enjoys early morning runs with her running group. She runs a few races each year and has trips planned to San Diego and Disney World for half marathons.

Kim Dupuis is a Manager of Quality Operations in our Plymouth office. She works 2-3 days a week in the office and other days remotely reviewing and approving documents that support commercial production and the product transfers from our Denver and Plymouth locations to Maple Grove (as we are now consolidating all of our manufacturing from three sites to one). She also provides guidance to the Plymouth and Pilot Plant Operations team. Since she joined Upsher-Smith during the pandemic, she took part in the October 2020 Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota (EFMN) Epilepsy Walk “for a chance to meet more people from Upsher-Smith and to be a part of something great.” Kim and her husband Harrison have a 4-year-old German Shorthair Pointer named Millie. They enjoy kayaking, camping and fishing in the summer, and Kim spends winters on craft projects including screen printing, glass etching, making decals and shirts. She also enjoys travel and has visited 15 countries.

Dustin Neiman is a Senior Scientist II based in Denver. One of the things he enjoys most about his job is that no two days are identical. Working at a small facility with a few employees, he says he’s had the opportunity to wear a lot of different hats. Some common day-to-day activities he can be found doing include process validation, equipment qualification, troubleshooting production issues, working a new manufacturing process, or writing a deviation, batch record or SOP. Born and raised in Minnesota, Dustin went to school in Oregon and now is happily settled in sunny Denver, Colo. with his girlfriend, kids and chickens. He loves camping, fly fishing in the mountains and making homemade noodles from scratch: ramen, soba, Chinese egg noodles, spaghetti … you name it.

Tom Sicheneder, a Senior Material Handler, is based in our Maple Grove office. His duties mainly consist of unloading trucks; prepping and labeling products; staging pallets in the racks and eventually putting them away with a turret truck. Tom has a passion for helping others by volunteering, ringing the kettle bell for Salvation Army and donating blood. “I like to dress up for bell ringing because I can’t sing and I can’t dance, so I draw people to the kettle by doing something totally different. It really works.” He’s also known as one of the first people to welcome new employees to Upsher-Smith, and he is widely admired and appreciated for his sincere and kind attitude.