Magnetic Attraction

Upon graduating from Clearwater High School in 1976, Allen S. Braswell Jr. had the opportunity to see the world, starting with a recommendation to West Point. Now he's back in Clearwater, bringing potentially important medical equipment.

The CEO of Pico-Tesla Magnetic Therapies LLC has opened the company's East Coast headquarters in a 4,000-square-foot space at Airport Business Center, just across from St. Petersburg/Clearwater International the Airport. Though the space is relatively small, its involvement could be huge in helping Pico-Tesla determine the effectiveness of electromagnetic treatments on patients with Parkinson's disease and type 2 diabetes.

“If we're successful, we get to change a lot of lives,” says Braswell, a former criminal defense lawyer who helped his father launch Circuit Test Inc., a Tampa company that repaired circuit boards for Fortune 500 companies. “The next big thing in medicine may come from a physicist or an engineer, rather than a chemist.”