Gary Farmer

    
   I interviewed Gary Farmer from Alliance Health. This was over the phone and It was pretty brief. He told me a little more about the companies background and his story to how he got to be the marketing director there. Alliance was a small start up out of Salt Lake City that is meant to serve one who has a chronic illness. It is the middle man for things as support groups, affordable costs, and access to medications. It have been doing very well and there growing at over %100 every year. Gary said their marketing team has grown from 6 to about 12 people in 1 year. They are currently looking to buy more ad space online. 
        He thinks that within two years the company will be acquired. He worked in marketing in a business prior to this as was recommended from a former employee. He explained some of the things that made their culture different from his former employer. It was interesting to see his point of view on the company, and what his plans would be if they were acquired. He would stay for as long as they kept him he said. It was a good experience. 

Mike Jensen

        I interviewed Mike Jensen from CHS. I had met Mike once or twice in Idaho as I was growing up. He is the CFO for them and is very busy. CHS is a billion dollar Ag corporation that is located throwout the world. I thought he would be interesting to interview as farming in my roots. He is very formal and didn't have as much animation as some of the others I interviewed.  He was more set on ways of the corporate world and what steps need to be taken to reach a higher rank.
      
        I'm don't plan on taking this route in my job, but It was good to hear his outlook on the situation. He told me what a normal day would be like for him. It seems like meetings take up most of his day. He was very passionate about his work and really enjoyed the atmosphere. The interview wasn't very long, but it was good to see his spectrum of the business. It showed my that, the corporate ladder is probably not for me.

Shaun Sorensen

       I interviewed the CEO of American Healthcare Lending Shaun Sorensen. I met Shaun at one of the career fair things on campus. He seemed like his company had a pretty interesting story so I invited him to go out to lunch. It was a great interview, and I was able to learn a lot from what he said. American Healthcare Lending started with Shaun and his brother Nick. Nick at worked in various companies as a marketing VP an Shaun had much experience in sales. Together they came up with a financing platform that could be disruptive to the traditional medical lending.
        Before they even had a viable product, Shaun went and sold the service to a few dental offices to see if it would work. He had to cancel on them as many of them were willing to sign up. From here they bootstrapped and worked from their garage for 1 year. They hired the right IT people to help them build their platform. Shaun talked about the hard times, and times when they both wanted to just drop it and move on. They both stuck though the hard times and long hours to make it work. They are still fairly small with 30 employee's, but they are growing at a very fast rate, and they are making a good profit. They plan on expanding and hiring 30 more in the next year. They have funded over 500,000 million dollars since 2009 when they started.
        I learned from him what to expect when starting a business. He didn't sugar coat the experience but gave me a good feel on what he and his brother felt. He explained of the stress and even difficulties of hiring for the first time and making decisions to help scale up. He said it's not as easy when your the one making all the big choices. He was humble and very grateful that the hard times were over.