Gino Volpacchio joined Healthy Pet in September 2000, bringing over 20 years of experience in senior management, finance and operations with a number of high-profile, successful national companies, all well known for delivering superlative customer service across a large network of locations. He set about to apply that experience to transform Healthy Pet into the most innovative and responsive company in the veterinary industry.
“I’m a great believer in co-branding,” Mr. Volpacchio said. “We look at each of our locations individually, and combine its strengths in its local market with the added value of our brand.” The result is a tailored approach to marketing that has enabled many Healthy Pet locations to annually increase new client business by 10% – far above industry averages – while effectively communicating to and retaining existing clients.
Ensuring that Healthy Pet provides the highest quality veterinary medicine is also a top priority. Toward that end, Mr. Volpacchio revamped the company’s recruiting programs with a focus on attracting the most qualified technicians and doctors, with board certifications where appropriate, to staff the locations. In addition, he established the company’s Medical Advisory Board – a panel of experienced doctors who are available to Healthy Pet vets to consult about cases, continuing education and other issues.
Under Mr. Volpacchio’s leadership, Healthy Pet has achieved focused expansion, with 45 high-quality locations in seven states now under its umbrella. “Our organization has a deep commitment to our hospitals, patients, clients and employees,” he said. “We continue to initiate positive changes within the veterinary care profession. We’re here for the long term, and every day we are looking for new ways to add value to our veterinarians, staff and clients.”
Prior to joining Healthy Pet in 2000, Ryan Johnson served in financial and operations positions throughout 11 different businesses of the General Electric Company. Over a decade at GE, he acquired a broad range of experience and led large-scale organizational change, including the company’s Six Sigma Quality efforts. He implemented infrastructure and measurement systems to turn around weak business units, and received awards for his teaching and development of other GE leaders.
Mr. Johnson’s background made him ideally qualified to bring best-of-breed operational systems to Healthy Pet, implementing a wide range of programs that enable vets to focus their efforts on what they do best – treating patients.
“We began by taking a careful look at our hospitals’ operations, to see exactly how our doctors and staff spent their time,” he said. “That way, we could design our support programs to serve the vets’ needs, rather than the other way around.”
Among his most significant innovations are simplified purchasing programs that make it much faster and easier for hospital staff to order supplies. “Doctors used to have to sift through 25,000 different product numbers to find what they needed,” Mr. Johnson said. “We were able to bring that number down to less than 500, which makes the decision-making process much simpler and also enables faster turnaround.”
Thanks to the practice management and operational systems Mr. Johnson helped put in place, Healthy Pet vets have been able to reduce their typical working hours while dramatically increasing revenue. Before he and President Gino Volpacchio joined Healthy Pet, the average hospital posted $250,000 in annual gross revenues; today, that number is $340,000 . . .and growing.
“Our mission is to make everything about running a Healthy Pet hospital as easy possible for the doctors and staff,” Mr. Johnson said, “so they can concentrate on delivering great medicine.”
Leading Healthy Pet’s efforts to acquire high-quality veterinary hospitals and ensure a smooth transition for their current ownership and staff is Business Development Manager Rachel Wilde. She joined the company in January 2002, and since then has been instrumental in its growth, through acquisition of over 20 superb facilities.
Among her achievements are the development of a new Customer Relationship Management program to prioritize leads, facilitate closings and coordinate transitions; the creation of unique new marketing and advertising campaigns to veterinary practice owners and pet owners; and the implementation of new internal reporting systems for the accounting, operations and marketing departments.
“The most important thing we emphasize is that it is a two-way process,” Ms. Wilde said. “We want a practice owner to learn as much as possible about Healthy Pet before deciding to join us, just as we want to learn as much as we can about them. Only if both sides are satisfied in the relationship do we move forward.”
In addition, Ms. Wilde has enhanced the business integration process for new hospitals by overseeing transitions and coordinating corporate and field personnel with regard to operations, accounting, marketing, IT, purchasing and human resources. She also works with legal counsel and negotiates purchase agreements, leases, promissory note agreements, guarantees, employment contracts and restrictive covenants.