Denis J Hickey: Proving That Entrepreneurship Works Across Industries
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| Denis J Hickey |
Denis J Hickey is
living proof that entrepreneurship in one industry can be applied, and work
even better in subsequent industries. At
a time when most of his college peers were working at entry-level positions at
various corporations, Denis Hickey made his own way in life, beginning by
organizing what had been a disorderly band of 12 farm hands on a farm in
Merrill, Oregon into an efficient team of alfalfa-harvesting team members.
Charisma channeled
into farming output
Born out of necessity around him, and the chance to create a
profitable working force in an agri-business opportunity, Denis went to
work. He did what came naturally to him:
He told each farm hand how to do his individual job, but then he didn’t stop
there; he told each farm hand how to facilitate the job of the person next to
him. This was a new concept to the
workers. It made them think in new
ways. When it became obvious to all of
them that this kind of team approach was increasing the yield of alfalfa
harvested, they felt better about themselves, and they developed a near-reverence
for their youthful leader, Mr. Denis J Hickey.
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| Mr. Denis Hickey with his friend |
A local business hero
Locally, Denis became known as the up-and-coming charismatic
leader who could make workers perform like they hadn’t before. Owners of other farms asked whether they
could hire him to organize their work crews the way that he had on the first
farm. Some regarded him as a hero of the
agri-business. But rather than stay in
Oregon and repeat his management accomplishments, Denis felt a new calling, and
chose to ply his skills in an entirely new field: logistics and supply chain.
Entering a new field,
with the same attitude
Starting a new company from scratch, Denis proceeded to find
inefficiencies in the purchasing patterns of large companies. He sourced materials and equipment that were
otherwise going undiscovered. He created
new supply chains that earned a profit and are still being used by the
successor to the logistics company he created today.
The multi-tasking
entrepreneur
While he was doing this, from 2000 – 2005, he spent four
months of each year back in his home state of Oregon managing an industrial
farm with 17 direct reports. At that
point Mr. Hickey had direct authority for harvesting decisions for 5,000 acres
and negotiating with the buyers of the final product.
Entering his third
field with the same gusto: Real Estate
Mr. Hickey spent the next two years founding and managing a
real estate investment firm, H&F Property Management, where along with his
longtime friend and business partner Mr. Lucas Fairfield he managed operations
for over 400 rental units. Mr. Hickey
implemented policies and procedures for two staff property managers and 14
construction workers. Here, as before,
Mr. Hickey’s trademark approach to creating value from disorder, results from
chaos, success from apathy, came to bear.
Soon, each rental property Denis managed was better maintained, more
profitable, and regarded as desirable places to live by locals.
In 2009, Mr. Hickey re-united with Mr. Fairfield at H&F
Property Management and now sources material and manages staff at 250 units
that together generate $1.8 million in revenues per year.
A fourth field for
the dedicated entrepreneur: Entering Medical Devices
In June 2011, Denis J Hickey surprised onlookers again by
becoming an entrepreneur in yet a fourth field: Medical Devices. Along with co-founders Alexander Arrow and
Lucas Fairfield, he created Rindex Medical, Inc., a Cleveland-Clinic affiliated
start-up company that is developing what is planned to be the world’s
first-ever diagnostic monitor to give clinicians who treat cardiac surgery
patients an advance indication of which post-surgical patients are more likely
to develop atrial fibrillation, and which are not. The company is the sole worldwide, exclusive
licensee of the Bashour, et. al. patent granted to the Cleveland Clinic in
April 2012 for the use of ECG signals to predict atrial fibrillation, which is
now the world’s most-common cardiac arrhythmia.
On his fifth new
field, Hickey hits it out of the park
In October 2012, Mr. Denis J Hickey founded Coast 2 Coast Logistics,
Inc. (www.c2cl.us), a trucking freight logistics company with operations in
Cleveland, Ohio and Medford, Oregon which employees six full-time
employees. C2CL began in 2012 with
nothing, then generated $1.6 million in revenue in 2013, and is on-track to
surpass $5 million in commercial freight bookings in 2014, and turn a 15%
operating profit -- making it a contender for one of the fastest-growing
startups in either Ohio or Oregon. The
company has just signed a lease on its own free-standing 4,000 square foot
office building, making it a new pillar of the Medford business community.
