In 1996, Terry McGuire was a founding member of Polaris Partners, which has since rapidly expanded with investments in over 100 companies with offices in Massachusetts, California, and Dublin, and is now one of the leading venture capitalist firms investing in technology and healthcare companies.

In addition to Polaris, McGuire has co-founded a number of other companies including Inspire Pharmaceuticals, AIR, and MicroCHIPS, a far cry from his first job cleaning the dance studio that his mother and aunt owned in his youth. It was here though where he was introduced to his first taste of the hard-working business world. “It didn’t pay very well,” he says. “But it was my first exposure to entrepreneurship as I watched the effort it took to own your own business.”

McGuire is a third-generation Irish American with Roscommon roots on his father’s side. He says that “being Irish is about being part of a present-day community that shares important values which include a strong work ethic, the importance of family, and a love of life.”

With a B.S. in physics and economics from Hobart College, an M.S. in engineering from the Thayer School at Dartmouth, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and an honorary J.D. from Ohio Wesleyan University, this credo is something McGuire has followed his whole life. Originally from Buffalo, he currently resides in Massachusetts with his wife Carolyn and three kids Barton, Seamas, and Eileen.