Pediatrician and owner of Lyndon Pediatrics recognized as the Woman-Owned Business of the Year by the Syracuse district office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She talks about being in private practice
By Mary Beth Roach
Q: How long have you been practicing?
A: I started my pediatric residency in 2008. I did a three-year residency at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital in Syracuse and then I entered private practice at Lyndon Pediatrics in 2011 and I’ve been there ever since.
Q: How many patients do you have?
A: We have 4,000 patients.
Q: In May, you were honored as the Small Business Administration’s Women-owned Business of the Year and it recognized your involvement in the SBA 504 program. Can you tell us about the SBA 504 program and what the award has meant to you?
A: Because of COVID-19, a lot of small businesses had to be supported at one time or another by the federal business grants. We were very familiar with federal support for small business and luckily, when my lease was up, it was also the time when small businesses were incentivized through the Small Business Association, the SBA, to buy their location. We applied for that funding, and it was brokered by Pursuit, a local banking partner. Ben Alexander there worked with our banking expert at Tompkins Community Bank, Brandon Card and they were able to pull this together for me. We got the building loan and grant partly through Tompkins and partly through Pursuit, but funded partially by the SBA. It was Ben who nominated me for the award. And we were humbled and thrilled.
Q: Your landlord, at the time, was open to selling the building?
A: Originally, Dr. Robert Long started this practice in the late ‘70s and then brought on Dr. Thomas Little and they planned and built this building. This has always been a physician-owned practice, -business, -property. Then, Bob retired and has since passed away. Tom retired eight years ago. The practice leases it from the physician-owner. When that lease was up, Tom said ‘I’m retiring; it’s time to buy the building,’ which was always the model of this practice. The plan was always to have the next physician-owner buy the building.
As the last remaining partner, I had to dissolve the previous partnership and form my own personal LLC entity. That was my first taste of how to be a businesswoman. And then, I had to form my own entity because it’s no longer a partnership. I was a sole business owner; then after I that formed a real estate company and then became a commercial business owner of a commercial business building. And in between that, ride out the COVID-19 crisis when literally everyone closed their doors. How does a small business stay alive during a pandemic? Learning how to work with the federal government and banking partners for the Payroll Protection Program. It was a fast learning curve.
Q: How is it taking on the business aspect and continuing your practice?
A: Our goal here is to have a small practice that has a very personal feel with a lot of honesty and integrity, very detailed care. Those are the same goals that I have for the business. I want it to be a small family-owned business. I want it to be detail-oriented to provide good business decisions.
How do I, as a doctor, transpose that philosophy to my business? I have to take care of my employees on the business end and it’s the same as medicine. It’s a team sport. Who’s going to help you when things get hard? It’s small business owners. We try to make business decisions that support our employees.
Q: What has owning the building done for your practice?
A: Owning your own building provides control. My priority is the safety of my patients and employees. I can control the quality of an environment to give the best care to my patients, knowing they’re walking into an office that cleans rooms and has HEPA filters. I have total control over the safety of my office. So that’s a big deal in medicine.
Secondly, you have the economic safety net of not having to ever lose a space or leave a space or you don’t have an inflated overhead number. A business is an asset. The property is a great way to increase an asset.