[5] The company's founder, George D. LeMaitre, M.D., was a practicing vascular surgeon in Massachusetts, chief of surgery at Lawrence General Hospital,[6][7] and a clinical instructor at his alma mater, the Tufts University School of Medicine.

[8] In 1981, LeMaitre treated an elderly colleague who required a procedure to reroute blood flow in his leg in order to avoid a potential amputation.

[2] LeMaitre was so pleased with the success of this new device that he spent the next two years attempting to interest medical product companies in producing it.

By 2004, when George D. LeMaitre stepped down as chair of the Board of Directors,[8] the company had operations and facilities in Sulzbach, Germany, Phoenix, Arizona, St. Petersburg, Florida, Brymbo, Wales and beginning that year in Tokyo, Japan.

[16] As of 2005[update], the company was noted to have obtained a quarter of its revenues from sales of valvulotomes, with other products including "embolectomy catheters, carotid shunts, and radiopaque tape".

These include: Over the history of its growth, LeMaitre Vascular has established a number of domestic and foreign subsidiaries to carry out its business nationally and internationally.