By Jorge Mercado Friday, February 27th, 2026

Most college students who go home for winter break are excited to celebrate the holidays, see some old friends, and, most importantly, avoid doing any work for the next couple of weeks.

But in 2000, UC Santa Barbara students Ali Bauerlein, Brenton Taylor and Byron Myers had some homework — they tasked themselves to come up with a good business idea for the Center for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management business plan competition (now known as the New Venture Competition).

Over the break, Bauerlein visited her grandmother, Mae, who needed to use oxygen tanks. Her grandmother spoke about how heavy and restrictive the tanks made her everyday life.

So, when the gang returned to Santa Barbara, the one idea that stood out was the one to help Bauerlein’s grandmother. The next few months were filled with a lot of work — doing some market research, drawing up what a product could look like and coming up with a pitch.

All the hard work paid off in May 2001 when the three judges heard the trio’s business plan and declared them the winner, handing them a $10,000 check for “Oxygen Solutions.”

That victory was the starting point for Bauerlein, Taylor and Myers and their company, Goleta-based Inogen, a firm now celebrating its 25th year in business, while still providing the same service it was founded on — portable oxygen concentrators for individuals with chronic respiratory conditions.

“When you look back at 25 years and think about how many people Inogen has impacted from a patient standpoint, it’s just something really special to have been involved in,” Taylor said.

“Over a million patients have been impacted over that time, and to me, what is really cool is that it is still the number one product when people think of portable oxygen concentrators, when people think of Inogen, they think of a high-quality product,” Bauerlein said.

“It’s just really rewarding, I look back at it with fondness,” Myers said. “I see people with our products at airports and all over the place and I never dreamed of being able to have an impact like that.”

The trio was friends before they started the business, but the first connection was between Taylor and Bauerlein. The two grew up in Northern California and visited UCSB together, both deciding during the visit that they had to attend. They even lived together during some of their college years.

When the two were sophomores, Bauerlein met Myers, a senior, at one of the CEEM’s classes. Soon thereafter, the three all got together to enter the competition.

The hardest part of preparing the business plan was the fact that they had no idea what other teams were doing. 

“We just had no idea where we stood. We just knew we had an idea we liked,” Bauerlein said.

The judges ended up liking the idea too. In fact, two of the judges liked it so much that they became involved with the company, with Steve Cooper investing $250,000 and Kathy Odell stepping up to be the company’s first CEO through 2008.

The trio is humble, saying that if they entered the competition nowadays with the pitch they had then, there’s “no way we would win.”

“I agree with them,” Odell said with a laugh. “But the key thing was they identified a very real problem and that’s always the key to entrepreneurial success.”

At the time of their pitch, there were no portable oxygen concentrators. This meant that if the three could come up with a successful working product, they would have a huge market fit all by themselves. 

It also meant, however, that they would have to be the first ones to create something that hadn’t been created — a serious feat for a group of college students that entered the competition for experience more than anything.

“Most of the equipment that had been around and used was pretty low technology, so there was definitely room to innovate, but when we talked to competitors and providers, a lot of them just said it wouldn’t be possible,” Taylor said. 

But like most 20-year-olds, the trio didn’t listen. As far as they were concerned, they had financial backing from a judge and significant help from the other, so they wanted to do something no one had done, which was to create the portable oxygen concentrator.

“The one thing people underestimate about Inogen is how complicated the technology really is,” Bauerlein said. 

For one, the company had to find a way to include all the engineering capabilities in huge tanks (battery life, chemical processes for oxygen and nitrogen, etc.) into a much smaller product. They were also creating a product not just for anyone, but for people who desperately need it. 

Bauerlein and Taylor were working on this issue while also finishing up university. Myers, who graduated in 2001, had to work odd jobs, crash on people’s couches and do whatever he could to try to make a living.

One of the company’s first big wins came in 2003, the day of Bauerlein and Taylor’s graduation. On the day they got their diplomas, they also inked their first venture capital round.

“They got to talk straight into a job at Inogen and didn’t have to suffer like I did,” Myers said with a laugh. “All my friends left and got great jobs, and I was just trying to make it for two years… But I knew it was worth it, even if it failed, it was going to be a great experience.”

Luckily for everyone involved, it didn’t fail. In 2004, the company launched the first-ever POC to market, the Inogen One. They gave the first-ever Inogen One to the inspiration of the company, Mae. All three agreed that it is probably the most memorable moment of the 25-year journey.

“From her perspective, it took a little long,” Bauerlein said with a laugh. “But she was so proud. We got to do a cruise and do all the things she wanted to do to live her life.”

“It was such a full-circle moment to present that to her. Her quote was ‘This is better than anything I could have hoped for,’ and that was so special, and we kept that through the company’s DNA,” Myers said.

In between the smiles and laughter, however, there were tough moments. In 2008, the height of the economic recession, Inogen was in dire straits. The company’s business model was failing. So, instead of product innovation, it relied on market innovation — Inogen went direct-to-consumer. It was a hit.

“We went direct to consumer in MedTech when hardly anyone had at that time and all of our advisors were saying we can’t do this, we can’t have a conflicting business model where you sell to businesses and you go straight to patients, but that is the largest thing that led to our success,” Myers said. “That was what changed the trajectory of the business.”

“It really just speaks to the commitment of the team to see through a lot of those challenges, even though they were really uphill battles,” Taylor said.

After that, more wins came. In 2014, Inogen successfully went public, debuting at $16 a share. By then, each of the trio had worked themselves into executive roles: Taylor as the EVP of engineering, Myers as the vice president of Marketing and Bauerlein as the CFO.

At age 32 at the time of IPO, Bauerlein became one of the youngest CFOs of a publicly traded company ever.

“Ali is simply amazing,” Odell said. “She had just this amazing capacity to understand things, not just as numbers, but what they meant to the business.”

But like all good things, they must come to an end. 

Within six months in 2021, Bauerlein, Taylor and Myers all stepped down from their roles at Inogen. Despite leaving, Inogen still has the three friends’ DNA deeply embedded.

“From the inception, Inogen’s cofounders have championed a powerful and transformative idea: enhancing lives through improved mobility. Twenty-five years later, this vision has become a reality for over one million patients worldwide, now experience greater freedom, confidence, and independence because of the innovations they introduced,” said Kevin Smith, Inogen’s president and CEO. “Their dedication continues to inspire our teams and drive our progress as we broaden our global impact. We are proud to advance this mission and even prouder of the lives we are transforming every single day.”

Odell called the trio’s journey “an entrepreneurial fairy tale.”

“(Being the CEO of Inogen) is one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Odell said. “I used to always refer to them as the kids, and so they sort of feel like they are my own, but there is no greater joy in life than seeing good people able to do good work, because you helped them out.”

Five years after leaving, the three are still doing meaningful work — with some continuing to work closely with one another.

Bauerlein is currently the COO of Menlo Park-based Sight Sciences, which aims to provide eyecare providers with clinically proven therapies that are intuitive, less invasive, and more intelligent. A year and a half ago, Bauerlein was able to successfully recruit her close friend Taylor to be the executive vice president of operations and research and development.

“We had a real need on the operations and R&D side, and when we were talking about what we needed, I was like, I know somebody who can do that exact skill set,” Bauerlein said with a laugh.

“Anyone who’s worked with Ali over the years knows she can be persuasive,” Taylor said with a laugh. “But MedTech is such a special place. The impact and direct outcome for people is very motivating and for me, it working with Ali has been a huge part of my career and doing that again was exciting.”

Myers is also working with someone close to him. After taking time off to spend with family, Myers is helping his 16-year-old daughter get her first business off the — a hair care beauty company called Glimmer Wish. 

“We’ve launched products out there, and it’s been so rewarding to be able to teach her about business and just to grow the company with her and I,” Myers said. “Dare I say, personally, it’s even more rewarding than taking Inogen public, actually.”

Not forgetting their roots, the three also give back to UC Santa Barbara, whether that means speaking at the classes that Bauerlein and Myers once went too or providing advice to current students also looking to make their own path in entrepreneurship.

“I love coming back, I find it invigorating where it’s like you feel their energy, their excitement, that’s what it’s all about,” Bauerlein said.

Even as the three set off into new ventures, they are still tight and will always be connected by the business they helped create. What means the most to them is the fact that Inogen didn’t just give them careers, it’s also the fact that it gave hundreds of other people a chance to make a life here in Santa Barbara.

“We watched entire families grow up. We watched people get married and have kids. We watched people spend almost their whole career, especially here in the Goleta facility. It’s simply amazing how many connections have been made by Inogen,” Taylor said.

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