Mark D. Myslinski is president and CEO of DFD Information Services, a firm that designs software and hardware for pathology laboratories. He was previously CEO of Precision Therapeutics and senior vice president of marketing at Fisher Scientific. He has an MBA from Ohio University.

I was working out of Columbus, Ohio, and part of my responsibility was Pittsburgh and Cleveland. When I went to Cleveland, I got exactly what I expected.

It was 1985 when I came to Pittsburgh. I came through the tunnels, and I was shocked by the transformation. I thought, "This city is really trying to do something different and do the right thing."

Since then, I moved around to other places and then had a chance to come back here. When I got back, I was really impressed by all that Pittsburgh had accomplished—not just the quality of life.

With all of the societal amenities, the institutions, the museums, and the airport, there was the breadth and depth. But also there was ease of access. It’s easy to get to things here. New York has more to offer, but it’s hard to get in. There are all these issues that you just don’t have to deal with here, like waiting in lines. So we’ve felt the quality of life was good.

And then I sort of stumbled across a group of other people who had similar interests in entrepreneurship. And we got together and formed this NextStep group, and that allowed us to sort of put our heads together and think of ways we could help each other.

In terms of innovation and the medical industry, which I’m in, the important thing is the universities, and, in this case, UPMC. A lot of good medicine is practiced here and a lot of smart people have come here to practice that medicine, and that has allowed the development of innovative medical ideas and, consequently, the genesis of the company I’m with now.