Show Notes
Dr. Bill Petty is the co-founder, former CEO and Chairman of Exactech, a company that makes orthopedic implants. Petty, an orthopedic surgeon and his co-founder Gary Miller, a biomechanics engineer, realized in 1985 that replacing shoulders, hips and knees would be a lot more effective if manufacturers talked more to surgeons to figure out what they really needed. Petty, along with his wife Betty, built up Exactech from a small Gainesville, Florida startup to a global company with 900 employees in 7 countries.
TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1: 0:01
Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to radio Cade and podcast from the cave museum for creativity and invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace,
Speaker 2: 0:38
Shoulders, hips, and knees. Maybe you saying that as a kid and maybe you’re getting ready to replace them all. Welcome to radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles. And today I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Bill petty, the former CEO and chairman of Zack tech, a company that makes orthopedic implants. Welcome to radio Cade bill. Thank you . So bill, usually I save the personal questions for last, but I have to ask and only cause you look in great shape. Have you had any joints replaced yet? Are you still all original bill petty?
Speaker 3: 1:04
I am all original, but Betty Petty, my wife has had two exact technium plant , so we do have it in .
Speaker 2: 1:11
Okay, good. So you’re living the brand, you’re using your own product. So that’s good. What I want to do. I think most of our listeners are probably fairly familiar with orthopedic implants and what they do. But I do know that probably some particularly on the younger side are not exactly sure what that even means. It occurred to me that they’re probably not tracking this technology. Like guys say who were in their late fifties, purely hypothetical example. So why don’t we start by you explaining what an orthopedic implant actually is and what it does.
Speaker 3: 1:37
There are many different kinds of orthopedic implants. Perhaps the ones people are most familiar with are the ones that are used for fixing fractures or torn ligaments in actuates , but that’s not our business. Our business is orthopedic implants for treating arthritis and basically arthritis is a disease, hugely degenerative or osteoarthritis that the joint gets damaged. The cartilage is damaged, that comes painful, limitation of motion, those sorts of things. So what our orthopedic implants do, what the surgeons do with them rather is we go in and shave off a part of the bone and replace that part of the bone with on one side , usually a metal, a very high tech metal, such as cobalt, Chrome, or titanium. And the other side with ultra high molecular weight polyethylene makes a very low friction artificial joint , not quite as low friction is our normal cartilage that God gave us, but still very good. Now the implants or the ExacTech currently makes include total hip replacement, total knee replacement, total shoulder replacement and total ankle replacement. So basically that’s what they are. Uh , results are excellent. I would say in general, 95% are better. Good results. That’s not to say there aren’t potential complications as there can be with any surgery, but overall the results are very good. And in fact, it’s been stated rather kind of people have studied this sort of thing is total joint replacement or total joint. Arthroplasty is one of the best medical procedures developed over the last 50 years. So
Speaker 2: 3:14
That helps a lot, I think, to understand what these things do. You mentioned that primarily these are implants related to things like arthritis. So I’m guessing here that a typical patient for an orthopedic implant probably tends to be on the older side, but are there any other demographic characteristics of people who need or get orthopedic implants, background, occupation, that sort of thing, or is it sort of all over the map eventually? Do we all need orthopedic implants or does it tend to group itself? Demographically?
Speaker 3: 3:41
Let me first just answer the question back page, probably two thirds of patients you have, or TPD implants at this time are in the Medicare age or 65 are older, but that means one third are younger than that. So the most common as I’ve already mentioned is osteoarthritis or degenerative arthritis. And frankly, other than post-trauma or some deformity, we don’t really know why some people get that kind of arthritis. And don’t now rheumatoid arthritis, which is a less common cause of meeting on arthroplasty or replacement of a joint. We have learned a lot about, about the immune part of it, but even that, that we now have better medications for it. We still don’t know all the causes of this kind of our sprites.
Speaker 2: 4:28
So that’s really interesting. Cause I remember growing up that one of the causes of arthritis and I didn’t know if this was true to Smith was overused, right? So runners are skiers. I remember distinctly being told as a little kid, not to crack my knuckles because that would cause arthritis. Is that a myth or is there something to that that’s overused or extensive use or particularly joint is going to cause arthritis and some people under that age of say 65,
Speaker 3: 4:50
It’s mostly a myth. Actually one of my colleagues at the university of Florida was Rick Panish. He was rheumatologist . He was an avid runner as was, I still run some. He actually did a study and did an age matched and otherwise matched controls of different age groups, comparing runners to non-runners and he found no difference in the incidents of arthritis. One could even argue maybe not running, but at least aggressive walking. Our normal cartilage gets each nutrition by the fluids being pumped in and out or the cartilage as we use our joints. So it’s probably worse to not use the joint than to use it. Now, overused now become operative. People run a hundred miles and whatever I don’t know about that, I’ve never done that. I’ve run a few marathons, but that’s it for me and my joints are all still really good. So I think that’s mostly myth. On the other hand, let’s take a football player who plays for many, many years and may have some cartridge chairs and some ligament tears and those sorts of things that then sets up the joint to be not normal like it should be. And because of that, they may be more likely to get arthritis at a younger age.
Speaker 2: 6:03
That’s a huge relief because I’m a runner. And a couple of years ago, I actually started developing osteoarthritis and I thought, well, that’s it. I can’t run anymore and should have quit running a long time ago. And I was relieved to find the physical therapist said, no, some stretching and so on. You can get through this. And so now I’m back running again, not quite as much as I used to, but I’m glad that submit that makes me feel a lot better. And I can at least another 10 years for, I have to worry about this. So bill you , this technology of orthopedic implants has been around for a while and we’re going to hear more about how you started the company in just a minute, but first let’s peek into the future. What in your field, in the field of orthopedic implants, orthopedic surgery, what is the cutting edge or now under development? What will the next generation for instance, be able to expect or is likely to see coming out of the field
Speaker 3: 6:47
First to talk about joint replacement. There’s not already mentioned results over many, many years are better than 95% are in many series better than 98%. So when we talk about an improvement where you have to be very careful that an improvement is really an improvement or not just to change. And in fact that exact check , one of our mottoes was evolution, not revolution because sometimes it’s revolution, you may get some unintended consequences for total joint replacement. Actually there’ve been some conferences established by the NIH and the American Academy of orthopedic surgeons. And they actually came to the conclusion that improvement in surgical technique is one of the best ways. And there was a famous surgeon who said for a total joint replacement the best time to do it right as the first time. So there are some technological developments , particularly related to using digital means of being more accurate in the placement of the joint , exact tech . It’s worked on a , what we call a GPS system, which is a digitally control instrumentation system just to help the surgeons be more accurate. So I think that’s the area for total joint replacement. Now we can get into that , say more future risks. Are there some genetic things we can do to begin to curtail the incidence of arthritis? Are there some, let’s say biologic materials. If we had an artificial cartilage , wouldn’t that be wonderful if you were your joint out and you’d get the osteoarthritis. If we had a way to go in and replace the actual cartilage, that would be fantastic because then the body renews, it just like it does under the normal circumstances, there are some treatments like that, but currently they’re for small defection the cartilage . So let’s say you have a defect in your car. What’s the size of a dime or a size of a quarter. There are some biologic treatments that work for that , but not complete joint as we did with joint replacement . So those are just some of my thoughts about where we may be going in the both with joint replacement and with other more bottom line ,
Speaker 2: 8:59
That’s really exciting. And again, probably should emphasize for the younger listeners who would think like I’m not going to have a joint replaced for a long, long time. This is really can be life-changing for someone who has lost mobility, right? Who can no longer walk or lift or something to be able to get another 10, 20 years or more of a full use of their limb or their body. That’s a big deal, isn’t it
Speaker 3: 9:18
Sure is. And in fact, one of the things we’ve always said it exact tact . In fact, it’s part of our purpose. And I think inspirational to our employees that really our purpose as a company, to help people regain and then retain or maintain their activity and independence. And whether that activity named dependence means working so they can earn a living or maybe they’re retired and they just want to go out and do something with their grandchildren and kick the ball around. So it makes a huge difference. And I think also keeping people are off of crutches, out of wheelchairs, out of nursing home so they can have a more productive, active life .
Speaker 2: 9:56
So now we get to the part of the show. I always enjoy on radio Cade . We’d like to hear about origin stories and you’ve got a great one. You were trained as an orthopedic surgeon and you decided to form this company way back in 1985, along with your wife, Betty and Dr. Gary Miller, a biomedical engineer, and also has been on the show was a guest of radio K last may. And I have a little bit of experience with that on a much smaller level with the kid museum, working with my wife to found that. And so my obvious question is like, what on earth were you thinking and why? So take us back to 1985, you’re a surgeon. What made you decide you wanted to start a company? And what were your expectations? 36 years ago?
Speaker 3: 10:33
You may have gotten some addition , Gary, I don’t know what you talked to Gary about, but Gary is very integral in this as has been Betty and of course, many, many others. So Gary and I were both on the faculty in the medical school at university of Florida. I was just searching . There is an engineer, as you pointed out. And we did a fair amount of research related to joint replacement because they weren’t as good as they are today. They certainly were not perfect. It’s still not perfect . So we were doing research and one of the companies happened to be Johnson and Johnson ask us to do some work with them and develop an instrument system for a total knee system. They had developed basically Gary and I were having a conversation one day and he said, you know, if I were doing this kind of development, I would approach it differently. And I said, what do you mean? He says, it seems that that what we’re doing is we’re trying to touch up with your competitors. I said , makes good business sense. Of course, what would you do? And he said, you know, we have our own knowledge. We talked to surgeons, we go to conferences, we read the literature, we understand what some of the complications, some of the problems are. If I were leading this kind of development, I would look at those problems and say, let’s focus on one or two or three or whatever. Let’s try to find a solution or a partial short sheet that really a bell with me. And I started thinking about it because I was taking care of patients into your every day and began to study the industry. I studied entrepreneurship , uh, all those kinds of things and dairy was in my office. One day we were talking about some research and I said, do you remember that conversation with , he said, Oh sure. I actually don’t think he did. I think it was just said in passing by him . I said, I’ve really been thinking about it. And I think we should start a company and try to do what she, she just, and he looked at me and said, we’re going to compete with Stryker and Zimmer. And I said, sure. And he said, you’re crazy. So that kind of ended that conversation . So I went home and convinced Betty that this was a good idea. And we’d been talking about it for months. And actually our vacation time, I would sit on the beach and read these books and try to understand if this is early a feasible thing to do. So Betty , I actually went to Tallahassee, got the company incorporated, all that we had Gary over for lunch on a Saturday, showed him the corporate papers. And he said, Oh, you’re serious. And I said , yeah, I said , are you going to join us? And reluctantly he joined. So that was how it got started. I know this is often about invention. We didn’t have a product, we hadn’t invented anything. We just had a lot of knowledge and research related to orthopedic implants. So once we did this, we said, okay, how are we going to get a problem ? And we met some wonderful people up in the Northeast who are supportive of our idea and that’s how we got started.
Speaker 2: 13:23
Well, as I’m sure you’ve known bill , a lot of people are , you know , ideas , truly original, right? I , and ideas , really a formulation of other ideas that have pre-existed it all the way back to the Bible, there nothing new under the sun, but it’s fascinating how people do get these insights. And I want to go back just one minute to that insight or the comment that Gary May or may not have made about why just form a company to chase competitors. Because I think that was probably key right? To your longterm success is that from the very beginning, you weren’t just a, me too type of company making another type of widget. You were doing something at least different than the competitors. So you establish , I imagine a niche from the very beginning.
Speaker 3: 14:00
Just let me make one other comment about that in our work that we have really an engineer’s daring , an awful lot of others in the company. Now it’s absolutely essential that we work with surgeons because they’re the ones in ELR, they’re the ones samey issues in the, or they’re maybe the ones seeing an issue with the patient postoperatively may not be quite as good as either the patient or the surgeon wanted them to be. So we do that now. That’s not to say other companies don’t do that, but we have had surgeons that if we’ve put on what we call a surgeon design team , and they’ve said, you really want our input. You really showed it. You need it to get products better for our patients . And I think that’s a subtle nuance, but I think it’s been important to the surgeons we’ve worked with and also important to our success.
Speaker 2: 14:45
When you started this, you know, you had a good idea, you got Gary on board, but what were your actual expectations in 1985, fast forward 36 years. So on exact tech has over 900 employees in seven countries, annual sales of plus or minus $350 million . Did you imagine your company would do so well back then? Or were you just initial goal was like, you know, let’s just sell a few implants and see how we do, and maybe we can hire somebody. Well , what was your vision back then?
Speaker 3: 15:12
Before I answer that size question, our vision was to do just what Derek originally recommended, make a difference. You make a contribution, reduce complications and hopefully help surgeons get better results. Of course, if we don’t get on the market with it, it doesn’t do any good, no matter how smart we are, how great our products are, any of those things. But that was key to us from the standpoint of growth. Sure. We wanted to grow. I just gave the reason we can do the best. We can have the best for the surgeons, the best for the patients. But if nobody uses our product, we’ve not really done it. So did I expect exact tech to be East coast ? Largest city is now the answer’s yes. Maybe even larger. I don’t consider it where we are in any way, a lack of success, but sure. And I think if you’re going to be an entree for newer , if you don’t have that approach, you’re probably wasting your time. Now I’m more a developer and an operator, and that’s why we’ve stayed with exact tech because we know a little about serial entrepreneurs and how they do one thing and sell it in five years and go do it again. That’s great. And I’m all for that. It’s just not what we set up .
Speaker 2: 16:20
So you really anticipated my next question and that is you’re trained as a surgeon and you did that successfully for a while , but then you started a company and obviously this sort of your to-do list every day , when you wake up and running a company is different than a to-do list of a surgeon who goes in and does surgery. So did you like that aspect of running and growing a company, the hiring people that doing the market research or did a part of you want to stay in surgery?
Speaker 3: 16:44
Correct . The answer is yes. And in fact, for many years I did stay in surgery. People often ask me the difference of the personal gratification and my kind of surgery, total joint replacement. I’ve already talked about the positive results and what it does for people. People do everything from come in and hug your neck to bring your stone crab claws because they’re fishermen over on the West coast of Florida to show that appreciation. So that’s a very direct one-on-one appreciation. However, being involved in the company and all of that involves if we can have our products used around the world and they benefit from those products to surge in juice , that’s also very gratifying. It’s not the personal, one-on-one that being a surgeon is , but still very gratifying in a more indirect way.
Speaker 2: 17:35
Yeah, that’s a great answer. And I think again, the limited experience I’ve had with starting organization, one big difference that I think people who don’t have the experiences to realize how many different things you have to worry about. Because I imagine the surgeon, obviously you’re working with a team in the, or, but yet you don’t have to sit there and worry how the hospital’s going to pay the light bill or who’s cleaning up at night or locking up the hospital at night. But when you start your organization, you do worry about those things you have to, and you have to use a much bigger part of your brain to solve a long and never ending list of issues. One thing that I’d like to ask specifically, bill, and again, only cause I’ve done a little bit of as well. I have to ask, what was it like working with your wife, especially starting your own company. Now you can take the fifth amendment on this if you’d like, but I want to see what I did wrong. So what was that like?
Speaker 3: 18:19
Yeah. We’re often asked that and sometimes we’re asked that in the way that, how do you spend all day with your husband at work and then go home and not Betty’s answer usually? Well, it works . I don’t sit on his lap. I’m doing what I do. And he doesn’t like he does . And of course is a company got bigger. We got more separated geographically within the facility. And there were plenty of days that I didn’t see value at all at work. We may see each other for 30 minutes or an hour and a meeting and then go about what we do. I think more deeply though, we were both very passionate about what we were doing and we want her to be successful. We want her to be helpful to surgeons and patients. So I think I can admit more driven than Betty is, but still we were both driven by this passion to be successful and to use our individual talents and competencies, as you well know, everybody’s different and everybody has a different talent and everybody has a different ability ready. For many, many years, I was in charge of our human resources department and was very passionate about hiring the people that would fit the values of exact tech . Later. She became more involved in facilities administration and was passionate about that because our facilities important to our employees, for sure, we have a lot of surgeons to visit from all around the country and all over the world. They want to see what we do and how we do it. For some people think of manufacturing machine it’s kind of dirty and all, all over the floor . We’ve often said you could eat off the floor. They check, check. It’s not quite like an LR , but we’ve tried to make it a little bit like that. So we’ve used our different talents to try to help the company succeed.
Speaker 2: 20:01
Phoebe and I have talked to other sort of husband, wife, teams, particularly ones who’ve run their own organizations. And there are definitely pros and cons, right? I mean the pro is, as you said, you both share the same emotional investment and passion in making this thing work. You don’t have to worry about separating those two parts of your life. But on the other hand, we found with the kid museum at a certain point, you have to draw a line in the day and go like, okay, we’re watching a movie or we’re going out to eat and we’re not talking about this project anymore. Cause otherwise you can go to midnight discussing various things for various aspects or organization. And there’s no end point, which doesn’t really happen. If your spouse has nothing to do with your work .
Speaker 3: 20:37
That’s a super important point. And we worked very hard to maintain a good family life. When our kids were still with us, coach basketball at the boys club, Betty was supportive of Judy’s ballet. In fact, she said she put in a lot of miles between the boys club in the ballet and we’d go to theater and after dinner and she’d say, and try to have a normal life and marriage. I won’t say that we’re never came up, but we certainly had a life beyond work .
Speaker 2: 21:03
So bill, I always ask each guest a little bit about their CRE professional selves. So take us back to a young bill petty. I know you were born and raised in little rock and your mom was a homemaker. Your dad was a salesman. What were you like as a kid? Were you a good student? Did you play sports? Did teachers love you? Or were you always in the principal’s office? Like I was, I know there’s a lot to unpack. So take your time.
Speaker 3: 21:24
I was a good student. I was never in the principal’s office except to get awards. My parents were very supportive, but also let me be somewhat independent. Obviously I was a normal kid. My sport was track . Maybe that’s where I’m still a runner. I was pretty good at it. Pretty good at it. They want to try to recruit me to the football team , but I didn’t want to get knocked around like that. So I feel about experience was when I was in the air force. We did flag football because there must be . And I was pretty good at that as well, but I didn’t get knocked around because it was flag football. I’ll tell you a very quick, interesting story. I don’t have a high school diploma. You’ve already noted that I’m from little rock Arkansas and you may or may not remember or have learned that little rock was one of the first school systems in the South to be integrated. And I went to little rock central high school, great school by the way still is. But that’s where her father was first close to schools and subsequently president Eisenhower since a hundred first hour born. And it was very interesting. So in the 10th grade I went to school with just soldiers. Everything was fine. This was a school of 2000 students. There were seven black kids that came obviously all good students. I mean, they’re going to pick them very carefully. Then it was the following year. The governor fathers closed the high schools in little rock that was bad for some, but kids do different things. They went to other cities. There was relatives, there were some private schools that were already there and open. I took correspondence courses from the university of Arkansas during the 11th grade. If the end of that, nobody knew what was going to happen. So the colleges in Arkansas said, if you have a certain number of credits and can make a certain grade on the sat or act or whatever, you can come on to college, even though you have not graduated from high school. I did that. I actually went to little rock university. That was an easy discovering and I’m still a pretty young kid. It’s now part of the university of Arkansas system, but that’s where I went. And two or three weeks after I was there, they opened this high schools and middle rock . So I had a decision to make, I should, I’m already here. I think I can do this till I stayed in college. So I have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a medical degree. I do not have a high school diploma still. Don’t early in my life. I would get all these advertisements, finish your high school, get your over to fall in love with . And that went on for years and years and years. The other wonderful thing about that is they’ll allow you to be a 12th grader in college. Betty’s family had moved back to lower rock from another city in Arkansas because they knew they were doing that. She finished high school in a regular way . She did extra, got all the credits and graduate . So Betty and I met when we were 16 students at little rock university and you know, the rest of the story,
Speaker 2: 24:08
That’s a great story bill. And I imagine it gives you a , probably a fair amount of empathy for the students last year in high school who basically couldn’t finish or had to finish online or whatnot. And it makes me wonder all of a sudden, I wonder if they’re gonna be some future bill Petty’s out of that cohort because they had to do something similar. He sort of patched together the last year, their school, and maybe they started your early in college and so on. But that’s a great story. And I got to ask, is that like a trivia question at an exact tech dinner? Which one of our C-suite executives doesn’t have a high school degree ?
Speaker 3: 24:38
Yeah. When I was chairman of orthopedics at the university, they would make light of that in one time. One of the guys gave me a certificate to make up for not having a high school diploma back to your point. Yes. There probably are people that what’s happened over the last year. It worked out better. As we also know, there are a lot of people don’t have that kind of support. And so I’m sure they’ve been hurt by it. So we’ll have to see how we work through all of that
Speaker 2: 25:04
One particular moment in your early schooling where you thought that maybe one that you’d become a surgeon and two, that you would run your own company, you remembered liking the idea of that or thinking about it or did that come much?
Speaker 3: 25:16
Well, Betty always laughs . When people used to ask me in my youth, what I wanted to be, I said a charter boat captain. I still love voting . But in answer to your question, I started in college and business administration. So I had an interest in business. However, I also had a real interest in science and I was just talking before class one time with a girl who said a friend, but his girlfriend, actually, this girl is the one who had kind of introduced to me also, but she said, well, why don’t you try more science and think about medical school. That was really the first time I’ve thought about it. So that was kind of toward the end of my freshman year in college. So I kind of went that way. And then other than that early business experience, no, I had no plan. Once I got into medicine and eventually orthopedics to go into business that really came more from the work that Gary and I were doing and the conversations we had. And that’s when I more studied business. Now I will say one other thing about that. When I first moved to Gainesville, I got to read orthopedics all the time, you know, and that’s what I do. That’s who I am. I want to read something else. So I started taking a couple of business magazines, really just more as a diversion to read something outside of medicine and orthopedics. So over probably gosh, 15 or 20 years probably got a pretty good business education from reading those magazines, even though I don’t have any formal business degree or anything of that time . So, you know, you’re somewhat
Speaker 2: 26:44
Of an unusual combination because we talked to a lot of inventors, entrepreneurs, founders, and generally speaking, it’s rare that you have somebody say the inventor themselves, the researcher, the physician also start and run a successful company and a to start companies, but they quickly step aside because that’s not really their deal. So to have someone who is both trained as a surgeon, worked as a surgeon and then develop and run a company it’s not unheard of, but it’s fairly unusual. Yeah .
Speaker 3: 27:10
There are a few who have been very successful. I know one ophthalmologist was very successful and then much later, so this company out Johnson and Johnson, so there are some, I think for me it was, you cannot combine the, to make the kind of contribution for the treatment of arthritis that I would like to make way back in medical school. I became interested in arthritis and said in my career, I’m on developed a cure for arthritis. Well, I learned a lot along the way. There are a lot of different kinds of arthritis. I haven’t done that, but I would say that kind of where I’ve got to was a combination of orthopedic surgery and business has helped a lot of people with arthritis. So from that stoma, I did have that little thing in my brain very early in my medical career, even before I graduated from medical school, physicians are pretty smart people. First of all, just to get into medical school was extremely difficult. And then you work really hard. So it’s a matter of , do you have the desire and then are willing to apply yourself in another way? I think most of those shoes start companies that maybe eventually become very successful, but step aside, fairly early and remain on it as consultants, whatever, I think that’s what they want to do. And I totally respect that. I wanted to go a different route and be more involved in the whole situation. So I think that’s how we got where we got with exactly.
Speaker 2: 28:34
So bill final question, people in your position who’ve done really well, very successful, often get asked for advice. So I’d be really interested. What are the most common questions you get from people seeking advice and what are your answers?
Speaker 3: 28:47
It’s a straightforward question. How do you do what she did? I know a very, very successful surgeon in Arkansas, by the way, who sediment. I want to be bill petty. When I grow up, I mean, he’s a very successful renowned surgeon . He says that . So how do you do it? Study what you’re interested in it . Some people say, I want to make money. We’ve done okay financially. But that was never our goal. Our goal was to make a contribution, do something that we were passionate about. Perseverance don’t give up. I think it was Winston Churchill there . I’m sure many people have said never get up. It was back in world war two that Winston Churchill said we will never give up. So don’t give up because there are going to be obstacles things you’re going to run into, associate yourself with competent, passionate people of integrity who are positive and also want to make a contribution golden rule or platinum rule treat others as you would like to be treated. It’s actually Stephen Covey who developed the platinum rule, treat others as they would like to be treated. First of all, you have to figure out what that is and then you can treat them that way. And I’ll get you in a little bit , bit to exact text values and my own personal values. You have to build trust and exact X values are integrity. Number one, compassionate, teamwork, excellence and innovation. So work with the people and live there because there’s, I don’t see you doing that. They’re not going to do that communication skills, especially for me, I’m a very shot or there’s nothing. I hate more than a cocktail party because I don’t feel comfortable with that though. My wife now says, Betty says, you’re really very good at it . It doesn’t mean I like it. And then finally recognize your customers may know more than you do a whole lot of things. So be a great listener and in pay attention to them and work with them. So that’s kind of been my, our company’s philosophy. And I think that to what success we’ve had,
Speaker 2: 30:49
It’s all great advice, bill. I got a comment on the cocktail party. I don’t like cocktail parties. It didn’t come naturally to me for a while . And then finally I realized the secret to cocktail parties is you find the one person who looks like they’re having a worse time than you are. You go up and just say, how you doing? And they’re so happy to be saved. I actually was originally an introvert and then I joined the foreign service and I finally decided, you know, if the U S governments pay me to diplomat, I’d better get good at this. I got to talk to people,
Speaker 3: 31:15
Enjoy the same for me. I talked about listing, unless you can communicate with people, you’re not going to be a good listener . Right?
Speaker 2: 31:22
Well , thank you very much for being on radio Cade . It’s been a great conversation, strongly encouraged listeners to also listen to our interview with Gary Miller ILS co-founder of exact tag . That was from May, 2020, I think may of last year. Listen to those together, I think would be a great combination, but wish you all the best. Thank you for everything you’ve done. Particularly for people who now can probably walk or do things they couldn’t do before and look forward to having you back at some point.
Speaker 3: 31:44
Thanks a bunch. We have huge respect for the K kids can learn what they can do and they can be , I think it’s fantastic. Thank you. Thanks. A bunch.
Speaker 1: 31:55
Radio Cade is produced by the Kadan museum for creativity and invention located in Gainesville for Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie , Tom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded and Parkwood , soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak radio. Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.
