Remote Medical International: to your (global) health
Calling the field employees of Remote Medical International (RMI) adventurous might be an understatement. They are spread across the globe, providing remote-area medical care and rescue services in African oilfields, aboard oceangoing ships, on tropical islands and even during Antarctic expeditions.
It’s what you might expect from a company founded by CEO Andrew Cull, who explains, “I always thought working in a clinic in a war zone might be fun.”
Remote Medical’s specialists in wilderness medicine provide businesses and individuals with assistance in the remotest parts of the world where lifesaving help would otherwise be days or weeks away. Their services, paid for either on a subscription or fee basis, includes direct medical care, emergency training, supply provision through an online store and telemedicine.
For example, RMI might provide an on-site medic for an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a gas field in the Canadian wilderness or a tanker ship at sea. An individual sailing a boat around the world might pay a subscription fee to obtain medical services in an emergency. An isolated research station in the South Pacific for the National Science Foundation might pay for a telemedicine consultation or to have someone evacuated to a place where he or she can receive medical attention.
The company even offers training to U.S. Army medics, who apply in the combat conditions of Afghanistan the Wilderness EMT and rope-rescue certifications they earned through RMI. “Our job is to enable people to be safe in most settings,” says COO Mark Hamachek, “and a lot of these settings are very dangerous places.”
It’s a business in which Cull, a mountain climber since he was 14, has found a firm foothold. Since 2005, RMI has grown by nearly 3,000 percent, from $223,927 in revenues to $6.8 million in 2010. Cull reports that the company is on track to achieve revenues of $12 million in 2011.
That’s an enviable record for any first-time businessperson. It’s even more impressive when you learn that Cull is only 33 years old.
In Tacoma, Cull was trained in mountain rescue at age 16, and at 17 he was hiking on Argentina’s Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas. In college, he supported himself both sailing and as a guide on mountain treks, climbing peaks all over the world.
One of four children of a physician, Cull always felt at home with medicine, and he
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