Pete Bils

You should see my cubicle. It sometimes resembles the laboratory of a mad scientist, with multiple computer screens, blinking lights, and ideas and drawings on paper, strewn everywhere. But as the Senior Director of Sleep Innovation for Select Comfort, that's what I do some days - play in my cubicle-turned-lab, testing out new technologies that could be incorporated into our Sleep Number beds or into our Select Comfort stores - and I've been doing this going on 12 years now.

For the last several years, I've researched sleep and sleep patterns, and identified conditions and behaviors that result in great sleep and productive wakefulness. Along the way, I became the chair of the Select Comfort Sleep Advisory Board - a group of the world's premier sleep experts who help us conduct studies, but also help us create the best products. I'm also an active member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and an associate clinical faculty member teaching basic sleep physiology at Northwestern Health Sciences University. I spend several nights a month watching people sleep, monitoring them in a lab setting . For a sleep geek like me, it's fascinating. I also have my own "lab" at home. I've watched and studied my daughters' sleep patterns evolve (they're now 6 and 9 - lots more changing to do!).