Organization Background

Originally founded in 1989 as a single location, 1^st Pet Veterinary Centers, or 1^st Pet Vet for short, has evolved over the years to offer a complete range of veterinarian services, including 24-hour emergency care, in three Arizona locations.

Organization Background

Dr. Calvin Clarke opened Clarke EyeCare Center in Wichita Falls, Texas, back in 1973. His son, Danny, and his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth—who met each other at optometry school—then joined the practice in 1995. The younger Clarkes bought the business, which provides optometry services including eye exams, eyewear, and contact lenses, in 2010.

Organization Background

Originally founded in 1989 as a single location, 1^st Pet Vet has evolved over the years to offer a complete range of veterinarian services, including 24-hour emergency care, in three Arizona locations.

Organization Background

Experity was formed in 2019 out of a merger between Practice Velocity (PV), a firm founded by Dr. David Stern in 2002, and DocuTAP (DT), PV’s largest competitor. “It was an opportunity to bring two winning cultures together,” says Stern. Experity offers practice management software and billing services for about 5,700 urgent care clinics—about half of the nation’s total—across all 50 states.

Organization Background

Lake Havasu Family Eyecare provides optometry services and eye care products including eyeglasses, specialty eyewear, frames, and contact lenses.

Organization Background

Pregnancy Care Center (PCC) is a nonprofit organization that provides vital services to seven counties in Southwest Missouri. Since opening in 2000, PCC has served more than 225,000 young people with healthy pregnancy and relationship education services, at no cost to the individuals served. The organization is primarily funded by contributions from individuals, businesses, foundations, and churches within the community.

Organization Background

Provides optometric services and eye care products including eyeglasses, specialty eyewear, frames, and contact lenses.

Organization Background

Anodyne Surgical, which was founded in 1981, manufacturers medical devices used for ophthalmology; specifically, they make needles used in cataract surgery.

Company Background

Dr. Calvin Clarke opened Clarke EyeCare Center in Wichita Falls, Texas, back in 1973. His son, Danny, and his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth – who met each other at optometry school – then joined the practice in 1995. In 2010, the younger Clarke's bought the business - which provides optometry services, prescription glasses and contact lens - though the senior Dr. Clarke continues to see patients. The Clarke's began playing The Great Game of Business a few months after the change in ownership.

Business Challenges

While the business was doing well operationally, Clarke knew that his profits were some-what low relative to the industry and, more importantly, cash flow was not where it needed to be. “Bills would come in and checks would go out, but it was always borderline with how much money we had in the bank,” he says. Dr. Clarke also knew that his peers in the op-tometry field who were financially successful tended to be micro-managers when it came to the business side of the operation. He wasn’t interested. Rather, he hoped that playing the GGOB with his associates would bring about even better results than anything he could do on his own.

Company Background

Meadows Regional Medical Center is a not-for-profit community hospital located in Vidalia, Georgia – a rural part of the state about two hours west of Savannah. CEO Alan Kent first introduced the practice of The Great Game of Business to the 400 employees of Meadows back in 2003. In the 11 years since, the organization has thrived and grown like crazy in an era where most healthcare facilities have been forced to cut staff and services as they try and compete in the modern healthcare market.

Business Challenges

Before they began playing the GGOB, Meadows Regional was chugging along nicely: the hospi-tal was profitable and employees were happy. Then, the figurative wheels came off in 2003. Triggered by a doubling of their own health insurance and worker’s compensation insurance premiums, coupled with stagnant revenues, the organization posted an annual net income loss of some $2.8 million. But rather than lay off employees – and put patient safety and satisfaction at risk – Kent empowered his doctors, nurses, technicians and administrative staff to come up with the solutions to drive their growth forward.