Terry College of Business - Fall 2008 - (Page 61) network of more than 5,900 retail locations. David E. Pennington III (AB ’78) was elected as Dalton’s 27th mayor. Timothy Mescon (PhD ’79) of Atlanta was named the fourth president of Columbus State. Since 1990, he had served as dean of the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State. T. Ryan Mock Jr. (BBA ’79, JD ’82) of Atlanta is a managing partner of Hawkins & Parnell LLP, one of Atlanta’s top 25 law firms, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. 1980-84 Craig Barrs (BBA ’80) of Savannah was promoted to vice president for governmental and regulatory affairs at Georgia Power. Craig is a member of the Terry Alumni Board. Charles J. Davis Jr. (BBA ’80) of Cairo was named president of Capital City Bank. Harold Mulherin (AB ’80) of Athens took time off from his professor duties in Terry’s banking and finance department to go on a summer bicycling tour of the Italian Alps. His trip culminated in the Maratona dles Dolomiti, a one-day ride across eight mountain passes in which he sported the bulldog colors on his cycling jersey. Richard Page (BBA ’80) of Midlothian, Va., was appointed acting director of the Defense Commissary Agency. Richard’s government service has been recognized with a series of awards, including the Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 2007. Bonney Shuman (BBA ’80) of St. Simons Island is CEO of Stratir Corp., one of Atlanta’s top 25 women-owned firms, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. John Allred (MBA ’81) of Rock Hill, S.C., has three children in college in South Carolina (Winthrop and York Tech), but all are hoping to attend graduate school at UGA. Bud Gray (BBA ‘81, MBA ‘82) of Brentwood, Tenn., was named vice president of business development Terry College oF Executive MBA degree fuels M.D.’s entrepreneurial bent Sam Lorenzo (EMBA ’06) opens Georgia Urgent Care By Caroline Wilbert Wearing a starched white coat and hospital scrubs, Sam lorenzo listens carefully to a patient describe a troublesome boil that has brought her to the Georgia Urgent care clinic in suburban atlanta. lorenzo asks the appropriate questions. Has she experienced dizziness? Has she had any bites lately? He decides to drain the boil, and the patient seems confident that she’s in good hands. “let’s do it!” she says. lorenzo (EMBA ’06) was practicing medicine on this Sunday afternoon, but he was also executing a business plan. By day, lorenzo is the medical director of the er at the Henry medical center, but he had long felt that a business degree would open up other career options — and he was right. lorenzo is also the principal entrepreneur behind the Georgia Urgent care clinic, which recently opened its doors in roswell, Ga., and he hatched the plan in terry’s executive mBa program. “People are now having two or three different careers,” says Lorenzo developed his urgent care clinic idea with help from EMBA classmates lorenzo, a father of five, whose who work in telecommunications, transportation, recruiting, and banking. “I student team included people can’t stress enough how much my teammates helped me,” says Lorenzo. “I don’t who work in telecommunica- think I would have had enough focused energy to do this on my own.” tions, transportation, recruiting, and banking. “i can’t stress enough how much my teammates helped me,” lorenzo adds. “i don’t think i would have had enough focused energy to do this on my own.” lorenzo and his six partners invested $1 million and secured a loan. less than a year after opening, the doctors, who all practice elsewhere but work a few shifts, are seeing about 15 clinic patients a day. Urgent care clinics are marketed to patients who aren’t sick enough to go to the er but don’t want to wait for an appointment with their primary care physician. the patient with the boil? lorenzo says she would have landed at the back of the line at an emergency room, which has to deal with more serious cases first. “Four hours later, i see her,” he says, “and she is not very happy.” lorenzo says the clinic is exceeding his business plan’s goals, and he credits his terry training for convincing him to bring on doctors as partners, instead of hiring them contractually as staff. the terry degree also helped him understand what tasks and procedures to outsource and what he should handle himself. lorenzo expects the number of clinic patients to climb to 30-40 per day during flu season, but already the clinic is making enough money to pay the bills. the partners’ next goal is to generate enough revenue to pay themselves. long-term, they may elect to expand the operation, so that each partner has his own clinic. lorenzo, who is in his late 40s, thinks he may one day switch to his urgent care business full-time. Back at the clinic on his Sunday shift, lorenzo takes a quick break. His office looks pretty standard with a computer, manila folder patient files, and books about emergency medicine. But also visible is a set of weights that he and his partners used to work out with in the early days when the clinic saw only a few patients a day. lorenzo finds entrepreneurship rewarding, though his favorite thing about Georgia Urgent care is being a doctor there. “Patient care is fun,” he says. “For 20 or 30 minutes, i will spend time with this person. i will learn about her and accomplish a treatment. it is instant gratification for a physician.” ■ Business Fall 2008 • 61 SPecial
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