Entrepreneurs of the Year: Services

Award Recipient: Robert A. Bessler, President & CEO, Sound Physicians Inc. [Tacoma]

As an ER doctor in Auburn, Robert Bessler became frustrated with the system and the challenges to admitting patients. He converted that frustration into opportunity. In 2001, he and a partner invested $1,560 each and launched Sound Physicians from Besslers dining-room table.

Sound Physicians provides performance management infrastructure to hospitals, offering physicians who help treat patients, guide processes and ultimately improve the quality of care and results. Community doctors and patients are happy with the improved care, and hospitals are pleased with performance results.

Through a blend of organic growth, strategic acquisitions, investment partnerships, alliances with significant players in medical and hospital circles, and a new business development team, Sound Physicians has expanded into 14 states with five regional centers (each with a chief medical officer) and one shared-services center in Tacoma.

Its only the start. Bessler says the market is just declaring itself, especially east of the Mississippi, where dysfunctional systems proliferate. With 1 million patient visits per year and 500 doctors, Sound Physicians is well on its way to fundamentally changing the way hospitals work with doctors and serve patients by focusing on clinical process excellence.

Finalist: Dave Shaffer, CEO, DePaul Industries [Portland]

In 2007, Dave Shaffer became CEO of the financially troubled DePaul Industries, a Portland-based nonprofit that trains and provides vocational services to persons with disabilities. He quickly turned things around through a blend of mission and good business fundamentals. He streamlined core operations and worked to dispel preconceived notions about employees with disabilities by exceeding the expectations of some large companies. Since Shaffer arrived, employment hours have grown by 30 percent and new long-term contracts are expected to almost double revenue.

Finalist: David Childers, President & CEO, EthicsPoint Inc. [Lake Oswego, Oregon]

Soon after David Childers was hired to helm EthicsPoint, he began to reengineer the hotline system for antifraud reporting into a full-fledged risk awareness solution that was fundamentally different from its competitors. He spearheaded several technology acquisitions that make it possible for EthicsPoint clients to collect, manage and gain insights more easily from risk-related data and to gauge compliance performance relative to their peers. EthicsPoints approximately 2,400 client companies include The Associated Press, Ernst & Young, Sony, VeriSign, Pixar, UNICEF and Toyota.