Proving That Entrepreneurship Works Across Industries

Denis J Hickey: Proving That Entrepreneurship Works Across Industries

 

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.

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.