By: Kory Lanphear
Photos: Bailey Sadowsky
Issue: November 2025
In 1981, Doug Mastel founded Mastel Surgical with the goal of making the best diamond surgical instruments possible.
“Diamond blades are reusable, and they’re the highest quality instrument you can use,” says Logan Jundt, Business Development Specialist at Mastel Surgical. “A blade is 100 microns thick — the same as a piece of paper. It is the sharpest object I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”
Diamond blades are a bit of a paradox, extremely thin and fragile, yet durable. Primarily used by ophthalmologists for cataract surgery, eye incisions made with superior diamond blades, like Mastel’s, heal without the need for glue or sutures.
Mastel blades are made with lab-grown diamonds and delivered in sheets. The titanium handle that holds the blade, as well as every single other piece that goes into a scalpel, is hand-worked by an employee at the Rapid City shop. The diamonds are then glued in using a microscope. It’s detailed work and very specific.
By the time Doug passed away in 2021, the small Rapid City company had gained a global reputation for unmatched quality. The company also built a strong foundation of devoted employees. “I’ve been here since 2013. I started out at the bottom, as a technician doing dremel work and polishing things and worked my way up,” said Vannessa Laird, Operations Manager. “I’ve seen a lot of change in the last 12 years and I would say this is the best group of people that have ever worked together in this company.”
Not long after Doug’s death, Mastel Surgical was acquired by Pacific Surgical, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Steve Sharpless, President says one of the most attractive factors in acquiring Mastel was the strength of the staff.
“Doug had instilled in the group an absolute commitment to quality and to the company,” he said. “That is really quite amazing. The team really takes a lot of pride in the products that they make. They love to show them off.”
The team is also quite small, currently 10 employees. Vannessa and Logan see that as the company’s strength and the main reason their group is so tight-knit and effective.
“Nobody starts here knowing what they’re doing at all, and you expect that as a trainer,” Vannessa said.
“The first 90 days of someone’s employment, you give them really easy stuff and just follow their speed and comfort, giving them more and more challenging things. You help them grow into something they’re good at.”
“We had a doctor from South Africa who wanted Mastel products so urgently she flew from South Africa to Rapid City,” Steve added.
Up until about a year ago, Mastel had been exclusively producing instruments for cataract surgery. Recently, they’ve branched out to all ophthalmologic surgical instrumentation, like scissors. In addition, they have expanded into the sterile processing sector.
Future success seems rooted in what has worked for Mastel Surgical thus far: good, local people. “We’re Canadian based, but we’re committed to Rapid,” said Steve. “We love the people. We’d love for Mastel to be there for a long time. We’ve given ourselves room to grow with a new location. Hopefully that means hiring more people and expanding the team.”
“My favorite part is that the company is just regular people that chose to do amazing work for no reason other than pride and the sense of knowing that what you made is going to help somebody,” said Vannessa. “It’s so cool.”
