www.registerguard.com | © The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon

March 14, 2004

Care package: Safety trainer Medic First Aid grows under new ownership

By Jolene Daib
For The Register-Guard

A Eugene first-aid training company is experiencing a surge of growth as its new owners add services and focus on marketing nationwide.

Bill Clendenen and Chris Bennett have just completed their first year as owners of Medic First Aid International. Big items on the agenda for year two are building a new headquarters in west Eugene, and preparing to hire 10 more employees over the next several years.

Established in 1977, the 30-employee firm teaches cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first-aid safety to instructors, who then train others in these skills. Many of the instructors are safety officers who work at large corporations. They're part of the nation's growing emphasis on emergency aid in the workplace.

"We train the people that do the training," Clendenen said. "We train instructors, trainers and what we call master trainers. We focus our efforts on these upper levels and provide books and videos and other published materials."

Bennett said he's expecting Medic First Aid 's revenues to approach $5 million this year. That'll be up close to 40 percent from mid-2002, when Bennett and Clendenen moved to Eugene from North Carolina to buy the company from founders Maryl Barker and Peder Heineman, who were ready to retire.

Clendenen was familiar with the company because he had been a Medic First Aid trainer since 1988. Before coming to Eugene, Bennett and Clendenen had been executives for Divers Alert Network, a scuba diving safety business.

They declined to say what they paid for Medic First Aid or discuss other terms of the purchase.

They hope to break ground for a $1.1 million headquarters in the Westec Business Park in west Eugene by late April. Their goal is to be in the new building by Jan. 1, 2005. It will have 16,200 square feet, or 4,000 square feet more than their current site at 500 S. Danebo Ave., which they lease from the previous owners.

Clendenen and Bennett say they've lined up bank financing for the new building, but haven't yet submitted site plans for city review.

The two bought the 2-acre Westec site earlier this year for $120,000 from park developer APC Inc.

The duo's strategy is to expand the business beyond its longtime focus on producing first-aid training materials and training instructors.

"The opportunity we saw when we came in was to become more of a turnkey full-service safety and health business," Bennett said. "We've taken what is a core business of outstanding training programs and materials, and now we're adding on additional products and services and selling them to those same channels. It's proving to be very successful."

One area where Medic First Aid is adding services is in the sale of defibrillators, the devices used to shock the heart back into regular rhythm following a heart attack. Defibrillation while a person is in cardiac arrest significantly increases a person's chances for survival, and many businesses are buying the devices to use in the event an employee suffers a heart attack.

Medic First Aid sells defibrillators, offers training on how to use them, and has an online tracking system to remind owners when to install a new battery or change pads. They also work with a medical group to supply the prescription a business needs to own a defibrillator.

Rivalry from nonprofits

Medic First Aid's main competitors are three large, well-known nonprofit organizations: the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association and the National Safety Council. Each produces its own CPR and first-aid training programs. There are many regional companies similar to Medic First Aid, but theirs is the only large, national, privately held CPR and first aid training program, Bennett said.

Craig Aman of Seattle is training manager for Philips Medical Systems, which manufactures the defibrillators Medic First Aid sells. There was once little competition in the first-aid industry but that has changed, he said, and now the organizations that provide first-aid training are updating their materials regularly.

"There is a large market for emergency care and safety training. No one or two organizations can meet the demand, so having a variety of large organizations is a good thing for the people who need that training, because it's going to be more available and better priced because there is that competition," Aman said.

Aman said Medic First Aid has been on the cutting edge of change in the industry.

Medic First Aid was the first to take the traditional two-day first aid and CPR course and combine them into one eight-hour course, and it was the first to have video-based training that simulated an emergency and showed how to respond or perform a skill, followed by an instructor demonstration and student practice, Aman said.

"They were doing that in the mid-1980s, and a lot of organizations have just gone to a watch-and-practice format within the last three or four years," Aman said. "The for-profits are a good thing because they help drive innovation."

Bennet said a fact of life for Medic First Aid is that the Red Cross and the American Heart Association get a lot of exposure. "Pick up USA Today and there is a full page ad for the American Red Cross, or drive into Portland and there is a billboard," he said.

When Bennett and Clendenen bought Medic First Aid, they were surprised to find that the company was growing in spite of scant marketing.

"It had been organic growth through word of mouth," Clendenen said. "An instructor used the program, absolutely loved it, the students thought it was fantastic and thought, 'What a great CPR course,' and so it grew that way."

More marketing, please

Since stepping in, they have created a marketing program and hired a national sales manager based in North Carolina to pitch the company's program to large corporations.

"It's not a difficult sell when we get there. For us, it's just how do we get more feet on the street, more marketing presence, when we're up against such large brand recognition such as the American Heart Association," Clendenen said.

The new owners also want to expand internationally. Since its inception, the company has trained more than 80,000 instructors in 140 countries.

Trainers who use Medic First Aid materials are quick to praise the program.

Ed Rhodes of Fairmont, W.V, is training coordinator for Allegheny Energy, which provides electricity to Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Rhodes has been a Medic First Aid instructor for about 20 years.

Allegheny Energy trains nearly 3,000 employees a year in CPR and first aid, and in 1996, the company switched entirely to Medic First Aid for training. Allegheny Energy has put defibrillators in 73 locations.

"Medic First Aid offers what a business needs and is more focused on what a business needs. We saved a tremendous amount of money when we went to them," Rhodes said.

Secretary starts business

Suzanne Hinshaw, a secretary for the Eugene School District 4-J's nurses, began teaching Medic First Aid CPR and first aid classes to 4-J employees about four years ago. The district asked her to take the training, and now as part of her job she teaches classes to teachers, coaches, volunteers, bus drivers and secretaries.

Three years ago she started her own business, "Trained for Life." She now teaches classes in the evenings and weekends to other school districts, and to businesses such as day care providers. These groups contract with her and pay her to provide the training.

Hinshaw said the videos work well for visual learners and Medic First Aid is responsive to any questions that arise.

Hinshaw looks forward to teaching the classes and tries to make them fun. "I tell (students) to take their shoes off and put up their feet. If you're required to do this, it's about the last thing you want to do after work. I try to make it enjoyable for them, but yet I want them to walk away feeling confident that they'll know what to do in a given situation."

Unlike some first-aid courses, there is no written test at the end of a Medic First Aid class. Students pass by performing the skills they learn.

Rachel Kofoid of ABC Lifeline in Salem became a Medic First Aid instructor over 10 years ago and started her own training business five years ago. Recently, she said, one of her students told her that he had repeatedly taken the Red Cross first-aid class, but suffered from test anxiety and could not pass the written test at the end.

"This guy knew all the answers to the questions," Kofoid said. "He was so excited and he knew so much, but he said he never felt confident in his skills because he could never pass the test. The test caused him to think he didn't know what he was doing, but the Medic First Aid philosophy is, that's not what's important. It's performing and demonstrating your skills and being able to perform those skills."

Jolene Daib is a free-lance writer in Eugene.

MEDIC FIRST AID INTERNATIONAL

Owners: Bill Clendenen, Chris Bennett

Headquarters: 500 S. Danebo Ave., Eugene; planning to move to Westec Business Park in west Eugene next year.

Revenues: About $4.5 million a year

Employees: 30

Founded: 1977

On the Web: www.medicfirstaid.us