By getting involved every day, Emily Hoste builds a better version of herself
Repertoire – September 2021
Ten years ago, Emily Hoste was working as an online school counselor for 10th-graders in Ohio. To supplement her salary, pay back student loans and save up money for more schooling, she tended bar a couple of nights a week at a local restaurant in Dublin, Ohio. “Since I was 16, I always seemed to find myself working multiple jobs, so this was no different,” says Hoste, who today is an account manager in northern Ohio for Bound Tree Medical, distributor of prehospital emergency medical supplies, equipment, and pharmaceuticals for EMS providers.
In July 2011, the restaurant manager asked if she could pick up a private party that evening. Even though it was her day off, she said yes. Turns out the group was from Bound Tree. And it turns out the party was one of those life-changing events.
“I remember the group arriving late and thinking that I had come to work just to go back home,” she recalls. “But once they got there, I could tell they were a fun group. The night never seemed to end, and I remember having a lot of great conversations with a lot of very nice people.” One of those people, Jeff Plumb, gave her his business card and asked her to think about a career in medical sales. She would be providing customers with life-saving products to help their patients, he told her. “I was sold,” she says. She has been with Bound Tree ever since.
Hoste was born and raised in Defiance, Ohio, in the northwestern corner of the state. Her father, Steve Leonard, was a business owner. “He always taught me to be kind to everyone, because ‘you never know who your boss will be,’” she says. Her mother, Leslie Frysinger, began her career as a bank teller and worked her way up to vice president of finance at a local credit union. “She was an inspiration for me to always work hard to make her proud.”
Hoste received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in education from the University of Dayton.
Helping profession
“I always had the desire to go into some sort of helping profession,” she says. “I found the mental and social aspect of people fascinating.” At Bowling Green, she did some volunteer work with a weekly therapy group of adult male sexual offenders. “It made me realize that we were not taking enough steps to bring offenders back into society after prison. This was an opportunity to teach them the tools they needed not to reoffend and to make a difference in our communities.”
At Bowling Green, she got involved in leadership committees and organizations, and wanted to continue her education to be able to run programs herself. A few years later, she completed her master’s degree and made plans to get specializations in school counseling and clinical counseling. “But Sarnova found me before I could complete the second track of my master’s,” she says. (Sarnova is Bound Tree’s parent company.)
“I remember my first day on the job thinking ‘What did I do?’” she recalls. “I was playing a co-ed softball game after my first day of work and thinking, ‘Do I go back?’ I felt overwhelmed with all the things I needed to learn to do a great job. I was worried it would take me a while to get acclimated, since I had been pursuing counseling for as long as I could remember.”
But a few weeks later, she went to her first national sales meeting. “I was impressed and taken aback by the hospitality and relationships I had built in a short period of time. That’s when I knew I was in the right place and this career was for me.”
In many ways, despite her education and prior career track, Hoste found medical sales to be an easy fit. “[Counseling] helped me develop listening skills, and that has helped me grow in understanding my customers’ needs and wants. I take pride in knowing that they are serving my family and community members, and I want to provide them with the best resources and products I can, because they’re saving our loved ones’ lives.
“This job has changed my life. It has given me the opportunity to stop working multiple jobs and the flexibility to take care of my family, and it has allowed me to invest in my future.” She is grateful for consistent mentorship from her current boss, Dan Blom, and a co-worker and the person responsible for giving her the opportunity at Bound Tree – Jeff Plumb.
Since joining the distributor, Hoste has found ample opportunities to get involved with the organization. “I learned early on in this job to take chances,” she says. “As I learned more about what account managers need and customers want, I wanted to work hard to make things easier.” She has participated on a number of councils, including the Curaplex (private label) Council, Website Council, Training Council, COVID-19 Product Council, and the Sales and Marketing Council. As the recipient of the 2020 Bound Tree Servant Leadership Award, she was cited for being the first to help, first to volunteer, first to accept responsibility and first to think outside the box, and for epitomizing Bound Tree’s credo, “See it. Own it. Solve it. Do it.”
“I wake up every day wanting to make a change, whether that is with a customer, on a strategy within the company, creating a program to help with efficiencies, or simply to provide support to team members. I think it is important to do the right thing. If you do the right thing, you can build confidence and grow into a better version of yourself.”
Emily and her husband, Troy, have two daughters – Sawyer, age 5, and Ainsley, age 3. And a 12-year-old Dalmatian, Maddie.