Fayetteville Man Leading Growth of Medical Device Repair Company
by June 9, 2014 12:00 am 655 views
A Fayetteville businessman has helped launch a new company to service a previously unfulfilled niche in Arkansas.
Jay Brooks is the president of sales and a co-founder of Alpha Medical Scopes Inc., headquartered in Hot Springs. The company launched in September 2013 and is a sister company to Alpha Medical Equipment Inc., led by the other co-founder, Tom Kimmes.
AMS services and repairs medical devices used in endoscopic surgery, but unlike other companies with an office in Arkansas (Stryker, Olympus America) who must send devices to out-of-state service companies, AMS can make repairs from its Arkansas headquarters.
“There isn’t another actual repair facility [in Arkansas] besides ours,” Brooks said, adding the quicker turnaround time is a major cost-saving advantage. “The landscape of health care is all savings at this point. We’re navigating that whole process.”
Brooks, 39, previously worked for a medical device company in St. Louis before moving to Northwest Arkansas.
“There was a need for this in this region,” he said.
Brooks said the company had $350,000 in revenue in 2013. Currently, the company has more than 200 hospitals and surgery centers among its clients, including Physicians Specialty Hospital and Veterans Healthcare System of the Ozarks, both in Fayetteville.
Brooks said AMS will break ground on a 17,000-SF facility in Hot Springs next year, and the company — which has 10 employees — could have as many as 100 employees by the end of 2015.
“The growth trend is really high,” he said.