Episode #10 – Dr. George Robinson

Natural Leader and Entrepreneur
From a young age, the founder of Heartland Veterinary Partners, turned his love of animals and entrepreneurial spirit into a fascinating career.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to The People of Animal Health podcast. The host of our podcast is Stacy Pursell. Stacy is the leading executive recruiter for the animal health and veterinary industries. She is the founder of Therio Partners and The VET Recruiter. Stacy has placed more professionals in key positions within the animal health and veterinary industries than any executive search professional. And along the way, Stacy has built relationships with some outstanding people who are doing incredible things to make a difference. The People of Animal Health podcast features industry leaders and trailblazers who have made a significant impact or are making an impact in the animal health and veterinary industries. Stacy chats with them to learn more about their lives, their careers, and the unique and interesting things that they have done to contribute to the animal health or veterinary industries. She is here to share their stories with you. Now here’s the host of our podcast, Stacy Pursell.

Stacy Pursell:
Hello everyone, and welcome to The People of Animal Health podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Dr. George Robinson, a veterinarian and an entrepreneur who has had a fascinating career in the veterinary profession, Dr. Robinson, he goes by Dr. George, has more than 30 years of veterinary industry experience. He has held numerous clinical operational and senior management roles throughout his career. He is the founder and former chief executive officer of Heartland Veterinary Partners, a veterinary hospital, acquisition and support organization. Prior to joining Heartland Veterinary Partners, Dr. George held a senior management and operations position with National Veterinary Associates, a group, veterinary hospital, and support organization with hundreds of veterinary hospital locations throughout the US. Prior to NVA, Dr. George held several management roles with Banfield Pet Hospital, including as a regional medical director for Banfield, where he was responsible for multi-hospital leadership and operations for a region in the Western US where he had more than 180 veterinary hospitals.

Stacy Pursell:
Prior to these leadership roles, Dr. George also owned, operated, and successfully sold his own veterinary hospitals. His special clinical interests are avian medicine, orthopedic and soft tissue surgery. His nonclinical interests are business management and the human companion animal bond. He enjoys lecturing, mentoring, teaching, and sharing his knowledge through journals and media. He is a graduate at the Louisiana State University school of veterinary medicine, has an MSPH degree from the Howard University school of medicine and a BS from Southern University. He previously served as vice-president at the Louisiana Board of Veterinary Medicine, and is presently a class agent for the LSU school of veterinary medicine. Dr. George also served as the chairman of practice advisory panel on the AVMA. Welcome onto The People of Animal Health podcast. And how are you Dr. George?

Dr. George:
Doing great. Glad to be here.

Stacy Pursell:
Well, I’m so glad to have you here and thank you so much for joining us today. And Dr. George, I know that you have experienced tremendous success at this point in your career, but I would love to start off at the bottom and the very beginning of your career. What was your life like growing up, and where did you grow up?

Dr. George:
I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My dad was a professor and the dean of the college of agriculture at Southern University. So I was raised down the street practically from the university in a college preparatory environment, and I had a lot of fun. My high school and elementary was pretty similar to most folks, except I went to the same elementary school, junior high and high school in the same building for 12 years. And our class sizes were extremely small. So in a way, I had an elite experience going through my pre college days and I really enjoyed it. We were a very close knit community.

Stacy Pursell:
Wow, and I’m really curious to hear, when did you first figure out what you wanted to do professionally?

Dr. George:
I had that locked in like a science. At 14 years of age, it just hit me that I wanted to be either a physician, a chemist, or a veterinarian. And my number one decision on that list of three was to be a veterinarian.

Stacy Pursell:
Well, I hear that often from veterinarians that they decided to become one you early in their life. Tell us a story of your early career, Dr. George. How did you get started in veterinary medicine?

Dr. George:
Well, and the funny thing too was I hadn’t been around a lot of domestic animals prior to attending veterinary school. I had a pet dog and I just loved the thought of being able to take care of animals the rest of my life, and being around people who loved animals. It just seemed like a lifestyle that would just really suit me. And I loved biology and everything related to science, and so becoming an event was number one on my list. So I graduated from veterinary school and went to Howard and got an MPH. I was one of those folks in school when the public health part came on, I paid attention.

Dr. George:
I really enjoyed the idea that veterinarians play an integral role in controlling, in assisting with the health of the world. And I thought that as a backup career, that I would definitely go into public health and maybe even go into a healthcare policy. I was in Washington DC at Howard University and so the environment is very geared to that. And so I thought that that was something that I wanted to do. And I wanted to have the credentials when I still felt like studying to that level. So I went immediately after veterinary school and got my MPH degree.

Stacy Pursell:
And then after you got the degree, what did you do next?

Dr. George:
After I got the degree, I tried for a few positions at some universities, which I guess I won’t name since I didn’t get the job, and it didn’t come through. So I said, “You know what, I’m going to go back home to Louisiana and practice.” So I got to Louisiana and worked in the practice that I kind of grew up in as cattle assistant with a Dr. CT Raby in Baton Rouge. I stayed there briefly and then moved to New Orleans and joined a practice to be one of the associates at the practice. I stayed at that practice for less than a year. And it was precipitous how I started my business. I had worked at the practice, enjoyed it. The doctor came in and said, “I have an announcement for my two associates. I’m out of money.” And he says, “Here’s two weeks pay and I’ll see you later.”

Dr. George:
And of course, I was shocked and didn’t really know what to do other than to go home. So I was sitting at home contemplating going out to get another job, and one of my favorite clients called me. She had my telephone number, and she said, “Well, my dog needs work.” And I was like, “Well, I was fired. I’m not working anymore.” And she said, “So, what are you going to do?” And she said, “He needs work, and you’re his veterinarian, so what are you going to do?” She happened to be an entrepreneur. She was in the beauty business. And I thought about it for a minute. And I said, “You know what? I’m going to start a practice.”

Dr. George:
So I bought a truck and I bought supplies and started a house call practice and enjoyed it. I went from different homes all over the city of New Orleans, which was extremely interesting. I got to learn the city. I got to learn a lot about people because you’re in their home and you’re interacting with them at a time when they need assistance for their pets. And I also started learning about business, and I knew that I needed a stationary location. So part of being a house call doctor, you’re driving around all the time, so it gives you a chance to kind of see and search for locations.

Dr. George:
So I found a location in the area where I thought I could thrive and did a demographic study. I knew how to establish a business because I’d read practically every self help book on business you could get, and started leasing a place on Dauman Road and called it the Dauman Road Animal Hospital. And that’s how I started in practice.

Stacy Pursell:
Wow. So you were self-taught. I mean, you bought the business books and then you read them and then you learned business. And it started out with one client and then tell us what happened next.

Dr. George:
Well, I started with one client and built the practice up from the one client. I still did house calls a little bit, and my practice grew pretty rapidly. And I eventually moved and leased a bigger space to expand my practice and in the same basic part of New Orleans in Eastern New Orleans. And it just grew in leaps and bounds. I practiced in New Orleans for years and became a leader in the community. I liked doing a lot of different things. I loved multitasking. I loved wearing a lot of hats. So I got involved in politics. I got involved in philanthropy and different social groups and served on a lot of boards, civic boards, and just really immerse myself in the city. I still love New Orleans. I consider it my home. And I was extremely busy in New Orleans, extremely busy.

Stacy Pursell:
Well, and then Dr. George, how did you go from working in a single veterinary clinic as a veterinarian to leadership positions outside of a single veterinary clinic?

Dr. George:
Good, interesting question. Well, Stacy, what happened was as I was saying, I was involved in everything in New Orleans. I was on the city planning commission. I was the chairman of city planning and zoning commission. I did this, I did that. And when you’re in a city that was as needy as New Orleans was at the time, I burned out. I was like, “Boy, this is too much. I need to make a move.” And I sold my practices and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. And my plan was to go to Atlanta, work in a group practice, do zero management and collect my check and go home and just have a great time with very little responsibility.

Dr. George:
So I started that progression and worked with a big group practice, enjoyed practicing without having to worry about any management responsibilities. And I put in my time there and I was ready to leave and pursue maybe a different practice group. And the owner reminded me that I had a non-competition clause, a non-compete, which I did not read when I signed the original documents. When I looked at the non-compete, it essentially had me out of… I worked at every clinic that the practice owned, so I was out of the city of Atlanta. So in my mind, I’m thinking, “Well, look, I’m basically restricted. I can’t practice.”

Dr. George:
So I went to Florida and joined Banfield Pet Hospital as an associate doctor in St. Petersburg, Florida right on Tyrone Boulevard. And I enjoyed it. I had a great time. And my medical director came to me one day and said, “Hey, George, you’re a natural leader. Maybe you should take my job because I’m moving. I’m going to move up and become the regional director for the parts of the western United States, San Diego. And I thought about it and said, “Boy, that would be pretty cool. I could be the medical director. Looks like a fun job.” And I went to Portland to Banfield, and they said, “Congratulations, you are the medical director for San Diego, California.” I had never even been to California officially.

Dr. George:
And so I was a little shocked. I took the job and moved to California, and then just everything started blossoming. I managed the San Diego area. My boss, who hoodwinked me, was my regional president and I worked under him. I had San Diego, then it expanded to Las Vegas, Nevada. Then we added Arizona to my territory. So I had oversight of all of these practices. And then eventually, I had oversight over the entire Western United States, and all of this within a very short period of time using some techniques with self-taught. But a lot of it was just digging into multiunit management and learning what doctors wanted and what would work well with our systems. Banfield had a lot of protocol-based systems and I just immersed myself into it and was pretty well, I considered very successful running the Banfield practices.

Stacy Pursell:
Well, sometimes you have to go where the opportunity is. You mentioned you’d never been to California, but that’s where the opportunity was. So you picked up and went.

Dr. George:
Stacy, that’s a good call because really, I think one of the benefits the rapid growth of my career was my willingness to move. And if the opportunity existed, wherever it was, I was willing to move to accept the challenge and then work the position. Had I not wanted to move, I don’t think I would have had the same opportunities. And also when I started the San Diego, I never limited myself mentally to say, “Okay, I can only handle 10 practices at a time,” or, “I only can handle San Diego county. Boy, that’s a lot of driving.” No, the minute I was asked, “Do you want to do Las Vegas too?” I’ll tell you a funny, they said, “George, we need to add some more practices under your belt. What do you think of handling Las Vegas?”

Dr. George:
And I got very quiet and I was like, “I hope you just don’t change your mind. I love Vegas.” So I ended up doing Vegas and Arizona, and it just grew because I wanted the challenge. I embraced being able to become bigger and better in management and managing, getting a lot of people to do what’s good for them and what you need was just intriguing to me. And so I enjoyed it. I fit that position. It was a really good professional fit for me and I enjoyed living in California. That was a lot of fun too.

Stacy Pursell:
Well, you hadn’t done it before, but you did it. They asked you to do it and you stepped up and did it.

Dr. George:
I did. And I lived the California dream for several years until Banfield went through their transition with ownership change where Marsh pretty much took over completely, and that’s when I decided to leave the company.

Stacy Pursell:
And then where did you go from there?

Dr. George:
Home. It’s a joke. But I went back to San Diego and contemplated my career and what I really wanted to do. And I was licensed in many states, and so I started practicing again. I did relief work. So I did relief work all over the country. And to show you how all these various choices affected my career, being able to do relief work as a former regional person, I would go to practices and I’m sitting in the back, I’m the relief guy, and I would look at their operating systems and see how they worked, the practice management software. I would talk to the employees and they always tell the relief guy all the problems of the practice.

Dr. George:
So I would talk to the employees and here are the problems and think of solutions like, what would I do if I were going to solve these particular problems, and what are some of the mistakes that I see that some of the managers are making? Also, what’s working really well in some of these practices, and how are they able to sustain this in the communities where they were? So all of that just added to my database of information. I read everybody’s operational manuals. I read everybody’s employee handbooks. When I had spare time as a relief doctor, I dove into just kind of understanding how these various practices worked.

Dr. George:
And when I stopped relieving and decided to join, to move into my next step I just had just a wealth of additional knowledge. But I had it on a grassroots level. Straight from the horse’s mouth, I knew what would work, I knew what would not work, and it benefited me in my next move. So my next move was National Veterinary Associates. I went to work for NVA. NVA was a new consolidator. A big word, but basically they purchased practices and ran them. And NVA was one of the first private equity groups out of the gate. And I worked with them and built and developed the Midwestern division.

Dr. George:
So here’s another opportunity, Stacy, where they told me, “You can live in San Diego. You just make the commute to wherever you want to be.” So I commuted to the Midwest. I think I did it four times, Stacy. And I was so tired when I got home from those cross-country trips, that I immediately got home, opened the computer and looked for an apartment in Chicago. And so I ended up moving again to Chicago, Illinois to work for a National Veterinary Associates.

Stacy Pursell:
And then what happened after that? I know you grew in your career at NVA. And then what happened after that?

Dr. George:
I grew my career and reached a point where I thought it was time for me to move on. A private equity group had contacted me and basically, their question was, “Dr. George, you’ve worked with Banfield, you’ve worked with NVA, you’ve grown, you’ve seen businesses grow from 100 to 400 practices. You have a wide range of perspectives on all of this. If you can do it your way, what would you do?” And I described to the private equity guys what I would do. And they looked at me and they were like, “Oh my gosh, this is exactly… You are the guy we are looking for.” And I left NVA and started Heartland Veterinary Partners.

Stacy Pursell:
And then I know that you had tremendous growth at Heartland. Talk about that, if you will.

Dr. George:
Sure. Well, one of the things that I felt was very important when consolidators or a big corporate group comes and purchases the practices, what’s going to change? I mean, there’s a lot of fear associated with the doctors, the staff, everyone’s concerned about what changes are going to happen. And Heartland doesn’t go in and make dramatic changes. We keep the people intact. We preserve the doctor’s legacy. We have a little term we call vet centricity. We are vet centric. We cater to the individual veterinarians needs and growth. And so we don’t have a cookie cutter approach.

Dr. George:
And that theme and that process resonated with retiring veterinarians who wanted to sell their practices very rapidly. So we grew from one practice in Chicago to, well over 150 practices in a very short period of time. But we didn’t do it capriciously. Our infrastructure, our systems, we gradually just developed more and more and more as the business scaled. And a lot of that expertise came from my previous experiences with my own practice, with Banfield, with NVA. I was able to accumulate the knowledge from all those experiences to make a seamless transition, to create my own company.

Stacy Pursell:
George, you’ve had success throughout your entire career. I mean, you going back from a single veterinary clinic to leadership roles at different corporations and then starting Heartland. I’m curious, was there a point at any time in your career when you felt like you were truly beginning to gain traction in your career? Was there any a point where you looked back and you said “I’ve made it,” or, “I’m becoming very successful.” Was there any point where you felt, “I’m really gaining some good traction here.”

Dr. George:
In my private practice, pretty much after five years and I was still afloat, I felt pretty good about it. I felt that I had figured out private practice and what it took to thrive. And with Heartland, well, I was extremely excited when Heartland refinanced and converted our business with a larger equity group. That meant that we were doing something right, that people were interested in purchasing the company. So that’s where I also felt a lot of traction and just felt real good about what I had accomplished in the profession.

Stacy Pursell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I know that many successful people experience a massive success, and also there are some low points along the way too. Walk us through what was the highest high, and also the lowest low, if there was one in your career.

Dr. George:
Let’s see. Well, the highest high has to be creating Heartland. I just enjoy being able to take ideas and work with teams and see these ideas come to fruition. That just super excited. I’m the founder of Heartland, but nobody creates and founds a company on their own. I mean, we had a group of four guys who we all went bowling one day together to see if we could get along. And we did. And we struggle through disagreements and rapid growth and sometimes misunderstandings to really come forward with just an outstanding company, with a wonderful culture based on being friendly and kind and good to veterinarians. So that was a really a pivotal point for me. I was excited that I was able to do that.

Stacy Pursell:
Well, there is a tip go bowling with the people before deciding if you want to work together or start a company together. And if it’s a successful experience at the bowling alley, then go forth.

Dr. George:
Well, I tell you, relationships have so much to do with what we do. One of my monikers is people, patients and process. I certainly believe that in veterinary medicine, you can have all the bells and whistles known to man, but you need people. People make it happen. And I love people. I love working with people. I love the ins and outs of working with people, but you have to have good processes. And the main thing that I always stress to folks who work with me is you have to be patient. Sometimes, particularly when you’re dealing with people, and you’re trying to get a process and see it through, it takes a little more time than you think to actually make things work or get things to work the way that you want them to work. And as a leader, I think being a great listener and having patients are two just strong suits that you have to have.

Stacy Pursell:
The three Ps, people, process, and patients.

Dr. George:
That’s correct.

Stacy Pursell:
Dr. George, what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession?

Dr. George:
I would say the most surprising thing has been the dramatic shift in demographics in the profession. For a lot of reasons, a lot of macro economic reasons, veterinarian medicine was not as an appealing career for men. A guy who might’ve wanted to be a veterinarian could not do the numbers and see where they wouldn’t have incredible debt, they wouldn’t make the kind of salary and monies that they want to make to support their families, and so the male applicants started dropping and the female applicants started rising. And the demographics have changed tremendously. If you gO to LSU or to any school and you look at the class pictures, back when I was in school, there may have been four or five ladies in our class and the rest guys. And within 12, 13 years, it’s just the total opposite. So I thought that that was just a really interesting and dramatic change in the profession.

Stacy Pursell:
So you think a big reason for that is the economics?

Dr. George:
Yes, definitely economics.

Stacy Pursell:
What does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

Dr. George:
The future looks good. There’s high demand for veterinarians. I think what has to happen is the economic forces, of course, but the powers that be, through organized veterinary medicine, et cetera, have to promote the profession and all of the various phases of our profession because we need more veterinarians in private practice. We need more veterinarian CEOs. We need more diversity in veterinary medicine. There’s a lot of little issues that we need to aggressively solve. We need to figure out how to either reduce the debt or increase the revenue and income of veterinarians and all of those different things. When we come up with the right solutions, the profession will continue to thrive. And students, most kids you go to the elementary school and you ask them what they want to be, man, they want to be veterinarians. And we need to make those dreams realities, but the profession has to thrive economically and also, from an infrastructure point of view.

Stacy Pursell:
Lots of opportunities to solve the challenges that we have. Dr. George, I know that you recently moved physical locations and you’ve also recently changed your role with Heartland. I’d love for you to share with our listeners about the kinds of projects that you’re up to and what you’re doing, and also what a typical day looks like for you these days.

Dr. George:
Well yes, I gave up the CEO role and transitioned to the board of directors. And well, I can tell you, I dropped about 13 pounds. My stress level went down incredibly, I sleep better, and I don’t worry as much because when you’re the CEO of a company, particularly going through a pandemic it’s extremely stressful. So as my stress level reduced, I guess my quality of life improved. My typical days now are spent reviewing literature, assisting with a lot of the thought leadership out there in the veterinary space, consulting, I’m on the dean’s advisory board with Tuskegee University just trying to lend my expertise to the veterinary space to help those who need assistance.

Dr. George:
I still help with recruiting. I love talking to students. I love going to the schools and talking about different topics. But when I go to the schools, I talk about diversity, of course, but I also love to talk about financial business topics. So I do quite a bit of that. And I also swim and play golf. So my days are a lot more leisurely than back when I was a full-time CEO. And I moved to Florida. I love warm weather. I’ve never enjoyed cold weather. And my and so my days are spent with recreation, work-life balance, but still very active in the profession.

Stacy Pursell:
Living the dream. And you went to the cold weather for those career opportunities, and now you’re having the opportunity to give back to the profession, be an advisor to the profession in a number of different areas, but also have some leisure time. So good for you. The dream everybody strives for, right?

Dr. George:
Exactly. It took me a while to kind of detox, to shake off not having to be on point 150% of the time, and it’s a good feeling.

Stacy Pursell:
Yes. Well, successful people often have daily habits that help them to achieve success throughout their career. Dr. George, I’m curious, and I know our listening audience would love to know, what are some of the daily habits that you believe have allowed you to achieve success throughout your career?

Dr. George:
Well, I definitely can dwell on success, but I also had a lot of failures. And it wasn’t so much that I failed, it was how to recover from the failure. And I had a great support mechanism. My family were there for me to help me deal with failure and celebrate success. Back in the day, I read voraciously anything that was related to business. I listened to a lot of self-help tapes. And really, what I think the self-help tapes did, cassettes for those who don’t know self-help tapes, what they did was they gave me positive affirmations.

Dr. George:
And so I constantly had a barometer, a compass, whatever you want to call it towards success. I envisioned what success looked like, and then I went for that. And I was almost, well, not almost, I was relentless in wanting to be successful. And so what did that look like? But I had already envisioned in my mind what it looked like and how I was going to get there. And so the self-help tapes helped me a lot just staying on point, believing in myself, overcoming doubt and adversity. And so that was one of my techniques.

Stacy Pursell:
Do you have a key book or book on tape in your life that has impacted you the most?

Dr. George:
Well, I used to listen to Les Brown a lot. He’s a motivational speaker and I would listen to Les Brown. If I had a hard day at work, the next morning as I’m shaving and getting ready for work, I would play the tape and just listen to it. And so I would walk into work, fired up. I was ready to go for it. And Napoleon Hill all the, I would call them old school writers. There are plenty of self-help books out there, but I listened to Les Brown and Napoleon Hill quite a bit.

Stacy Pursell:
Think and Grow Rich

Dr. George:
Think and Grow Rich, that’s right. 17 strategies for self-improvement and Les Brown, It’s Not Over Until You Win and things like that. And so even though there was a lot of adversity in my day to day running of a business, I just overlooked it. I shrug it off like water on a duck’s back and kept moving forward.

Stacy Pursell:
Resiliency.

Dr. George:
Yes.

Stacy Pursell:
George, was there a mentor who had, do you have a mentor that made the biggest impact on your career?

Dr. George:
I would say I had a mentor committee of people who saw good in me and helped push me forward. And from Dr. Raby who saw I wanted to volunteer to work in his practice. And I always went to him during veterinary school just for a pick me up. I mean, school was grueling. And if I had a rough week or didn’t do well on an exam, I’d go over to his practice and just sit there and talk to him. And we didn’t talk about anything other than just life, and I thought that that was very helpful. Of course, my family, my father was certainly number one influence in my life.

Dr. George:
And when I say the committee, there were other people who wanted to help you. Like in veterinary school, Martin, Hugh Jones in public health, Simon Shane in poultry medicine, Sheldon Bevan, who was the lab animal guy. I mean, these folks always encouraged me when I was the only black person in the school. Well, there was another African-American student, but I felt very alone in many cases. And these folks propped you up. They kept you going. They were positive. And I have fond memories of school. I practically grew up in veterinary school at LSU. And I had a lot of people who were pulling for me. They wanted me to make it.

Stacy Pursell:
Surround yourself by those people that are going to have a positive influence on you.

Dr. George:
Absolutely. And I refuse to believe my critics.

Stacy Pursell:
Good advice, Dr. George, what has been the biggest adversity you’ve had to fight through your career?

Dr. George:
People underestimating me continuously. And a lot of it was due to racism, but I always got second guessed. I always got underestimated, and I turned that into a strength. That if you’re underestimating me and you kind of don’t know who you’re dealing with, you’re going to be in for a surprise because I’m coming. I’m ready.

Stacy Pursell:
So it’s a super power.

Dr. George:
Yep, that’s right. My superpowers are all about listening. I am an avid listener. I talk a lot, but I listen aggressively to people and I care about folks. I want to hear their points of view. And listening, I guess, is one of my superpowers and networking. I think people goes back to my moniker on people. People make the world go round. I believe collaborating, interacting, interconnecting, talking and dealing with people. A lot of folks say, “Well, a lot of folks go into veterinary medicine because they don’t like people.” I was totally the opposite. I’ve always been outgoing, gregarious, and I love talking and interacting with people, and I love networking.

Stacy Pursell:
I never understood that. I’ve heard that before about, but the pets come in with people, so you have to be able to work with and communicate with people.

Dr. George:
That’s right. And if you don’t have those skills, you have to practice one of the things, young people who came to work for me, oh my gosh, they thought that was so hard. I have some of them who still look at me 20, 30 years later, they’re like, “Dr. George, he was so hard.” But I think it’s an obligation of a professional who has made it or who’s already out there to tell you the truth to teach you the skills that you need, to teach you how to network, to teach you how to approach someone, how to be polite, how to use proper diction, how to dress appropriately, all those little things. There’s no class for that. Someone has to take you under their wing and show you how to be a professional.

Dr. George:
And that doesn’t happen a lot these days, but I was a big proponent of that. If you came to work for me, I was going to put you through the pushups, behavior, tardiness, punctuality. I mean, all those various little quirks that people have, I was a stickler about those things. And I hope that looking back on it, some of the students and the doctors can say that it was to their benefit. I still have a ton of mentees, but so far, I think it’s about 15 or 16 kids who came to work for me in my practices in New Orleans who are now veterinarians.

Stacy Pursell:
Wow. The soft skills that you were just talking about, those are extremely important and often overlooked.

Dr. George:
Yes, they are. And that’s one of the reasons why some HR people don’t look and think of veterinarians as being, for instance, a CEO or in a upper management position in some of these companies, because we haven’t perfected some of those soft skills that you need in order to navigate through that corporate maze and to grow. We kind of settle for a science-based position, doing my veterinary thing versus the sky’s the limit. The veterinary degree is so broad and veterinarians are so well-trained in so many disciplines, that it’s a valuable degree. But a lot of folks don’t understand and don’t know the value in the corporate world.

Stacy Pursell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Dr. George, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

Dr. George:
I would say keep doing what you’re doing and don’t be afraid of change. I practiced for 18 years and when I moved into management, it was a little scary and there weren’t a lot of veterinarians doing it, but I ended up finding a niche and excelling at it. And not being afraid to move, not being afraid to make adjustments, not being afraid of just not being fearful has benefited me greatly. And I would tell the younger me, keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t be afraid. Just stay on the case.

Stacy Pursell:
Don’t be afraid and keep doing what you’re doing. That’s very sound advice. Well, Dr. George, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing that you want to share with the listeners of The People of Animal Health podcast before you drop the mic today?

Dr. George:
Well, I love people. I’ve always been very proactive, very positive. And one of my favorite expressions is, Hey, it’s all good. It’s all good. Keep on keeping on. It’s all good.

Stacy Pursell:
It’s all good and keep on keeping on. I love that. Very good advice, Dr. George, thank you so much for being here with us today on The People of Animal Health podcast. We appreciate it.

Dr. George:
My pleasure. Thank you and it’s good seeing you.