Rep Corner
First, a short history lesson.
Sonya Kimmet
The Junior League was founded in 1901 by social activist Mary Harriman. It is a women’s volunteer organization, which today encompasses more than 140,000 women in 291 Leagues in four countries.
“We have the responsibility to act, and we have the opportunity to conscientiously act to affect the environment about us,” Harriman said more than a hundred years ago.
Understand that, and you understand much about Sonya Kimmet, director, supply chain services, for Concordance Healthcare Solutions in Boise, Idaho, who is an active member of The Junior League of Boise.
In fact, that attitude is why she’s in healthcare. It’s why she works for Concordance. And it’s why she, her husband, Chris, and their two kids – six-year-old Henry and four-year-old Sam – live in Boise, even though she and Chris were born and raised in northwest Ohio.
Kimmet grew up in the country, just about 20 minutes from Tiffin, Ohio, headquarters of Concordance. Her father, Pat, operates his own trucking company (which he is now handing off to a son). Her mom, Darlene, stayed at home with the kids for years, then went back for a master’s degree. She is now a middle-school counselor, and is working on her Ph.D.
“I have spent my whole life watching [my parents] work hard to establish and grow their businesses,” she says. Her parents own several rental properties and storage units and, with some partners, are revitalizing a campground in Ohio. “But they always taught us that our responsibility wasn’t just to be good people, but also to serve our communities.” Her father has been in the volunteer fire department for more than 30 years.
Lessons in leadership
After graduating with a degree in retail merchandising, she got a job with a private label jewelry manufacturer, where she got a valuable lesson in leadership from her two bosses, two female vice presidents.
“They taught me there would be times when they wouldn’t be available to offer guidance or answer my questions,” she says. “They said that sometimes I would have to make decisions based on the information at hand, and that as long as I thought things through, they would support my decision.
“It was very empowering, especially for someone right out of school.”
In 2009, when Chris was deployed to Afghanistan, Kimmet returned to Ohio from Fort Bragg in North Carolina. (Following his deployment, Chris would pursue an MBA at Ohio State University.) Back in Ohio, she had some time and space to think about her future.
“After working in retail, I wanted to work for a company that made more of an impact than just the financial bottom line,” she says. Healthcare seemed like a good fit. In August 2009, she became a primary care rep for Seneca Medical (which, along with Kreisers and MMS – A Medical Supply Company, merged to form Concordance in 2016).
Med/surg distribution
“By working in med/surg distribution, I could have a positive impact on patient outcomes without being on the front lines of patient care,” she says. “By doing my job well, I could have an indirect – yet positive – impact on healthcare.”
As a primary care rep, some of the most important things she learned were from peers, she says. For example, one rep, Pam Borgerding, familiarized her with the saying, “The customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
After several years, Chris earned his MBA, and in 2012 accepted a job offer in Cleveland. Says Sonya, “I told Seneca, ‘I love working for this organization, I love what I do. Is there anything I can do in Cleveland?’” There was. “I got my start in the acute-care market,” she says.
“My time working in the primary care market was invaluable as I moved to working with IDNs, because I could understand the challenges of hospital-owned physician practices, and I had a good knowledge base of what Seneca Medical could offer.”
She also found that working with materials management teams had something in common with calling on physician offices: In both cases, relationships are built on honesty and trust.
Boise
In 2017, Concordance Chief Customer Officer (and now President and COO) Dave Myers told Kimmet about a potential opportunity for Concordance with a large IDN in Idaho. He said the company could use someone like her to lay the groundwork in Boise, should the IDN contract be signed.
“Professionally, the potential opportunity in Boise was intriguing because it provided an opportunity to build on my experience working with physician practices and IDNs, process improvement, and developing programs for our IDN customer base,” she says. “Personally, my husband and I were interested in leading a more outdoors lifestyle and living near the mountains. Moving to Boise would allow us to fulfill both of those things.”
There was a downside, of course: The Kimmets would miss having extended family nearby, especially with two children, ages 4 and 2.
The Boise deal was signed, and Sonya and Chris “had to get serious” about making a decision. Chris agreed that if they moved, he would launch a financial planning company in Boise. Together, they decided they could use technology (social media, FaceTime, etc.) as well as air travel to keep connected to family in Ohio.
So the family moved to Boise in mid-November 2017. “We started shipping to the IDN on Dec. 19,” says Kimmet. “We learned a lot about the go-live. It’s a large, complex system. And we were doing this the week before Christmas!”
“When I came onboard to the project in Boise, my primary focus was to manage the relationship between our IDN customer and Concordance, and to bring our Concordance culture to the West,” she says.
“As the relationship has evolved, we’ve developed and implemented several innovative programs that have strengthened our partnership with our IDN customer. I’m so impressed with the level of dedication in launching this distribution center and making it successful. We are so lucky to have a great team of local employees as well as a corporate team who are all supporting the same vision.”
Making it work
Today, Chris operates Steady Climb Financial Planning (https://www.steadyclimbfp.com). The family has made three trips back to Ohio in 2018, and hosted several family members in Boise. And Sonya finds her work with The Junior League of Boise rewarding. “We empower women through training and connections in the community,” she says.
“We love the outdoor lifestyle Boise offers while still being urban,” she adds. “Our kids took ski lessons this winter at Bogus Basin, and we enjoy hiking the foothills on the weekends with our kids and two miniature dachshunds.”
She enjoys being part of Concordance, which she refers to as a family-first organization. “They truly do support working moms,” she says.
Michelle Clouse, vice president of customer experience for Concordance, exemplifies the spirit. “She is a great role model, being a mom with a career, and I am blessed to call her my friend,” says Kimmet.
And Kimmet is grateful for the partnership she enjoys with her husband. “I’m incredibly lucky,” she says. Recently, during spring break, Chris stayed at home, took the kids to swimming lessons and taught Henry how to ride a bike, while Sonya worked.
“It’s never 50/50,” she says. “If you think of it as each person giving more than 50 percent, you end up with more than 100 percent.”