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Alumni Entrepreneurs
Joanie Davis
In 2008, Joanie Davis graduated with a doctorate in audiology from CEHS and a desire to move to Florida.
“I went to Florida for a visit, picked up a phone book and called every audiologist around Tampa looking for a residency,” Davis said. “The only one who took me seriously was Dan Gardner, so I began working for him that summer.”
Eventually, Davis was hired on as a full-time audiologist at Gardner Audiology in Crystal River, Spring Hill and Zephyrhills, Fla. After five years, she decided she wanted to open her own practice and was fortunate enough to purchase two of Gardner’s practices, getting her foot in the door to business-ownership.
“I really did not have any business sense in the beginning. I had no idea what I was doing,” Davis said. “Fortunately, Dan was a great mentor and an open boss. I quickly realized that I understood a lot more about the day-to-day operations and finances of the business than I had originally thought, which helped me to be successful.”
Despite her apprehensions and concerns about being a business owner, Joanie’s philosophy from the beginning was “if you just do what is in the best interest of the patient, everything else falls into place.” For her, this philosophy has worked.
In the past five years, Davis has expanded her two part-time locations to three full-time locations, with two in Hernando County and one in Pasco County, Fla. She also continues to grow and build her customer base by being involved in her community through local organizations. Most recently, Davis was asked by the Greater Hernando County Chamber of Commerce to facilitate a women’s empowerment group.
“Opportunities in the community have been key to growing my business,” Davis said. “The women’s empowerment group I facilitate has been an amazing way to educate others about audiology. Our office is a medical office, not a hearing aid store. We treat each individual, not each problem. It’s nice to have a chance to educate others about how our office is different and what their experience will be like if they choose to visit us.”
At the last women’s empowerment group meeting Davis hosted, she had the opportunity to meet a 14-year-old girl with hearing aids, Marina. Marina told Davis about her hearing loss experience and disinterest in wearing her left hearing aid, as it often irritated her ear. Davis, with an interest in finding the best solutions for her patients, invited Marina to her office for a fitting.
“I knew the family couldn’t afford new hearing aids and I had no idea how I was going to pay for it, but I knew I had to help them,” Davis said. “In the end, the Kiwanis Club of the Adventure Coast donated funds to purchase Marina’s new hearing aids. I’ve learned that if you set out to help people it just all falls into place. If you’re not passionate about it, you will not be successful.”
Davis’ passion for helping others doesn’t stop there. She feels it becomes addictive to help people once you start, and her whole staff has adopted this energy.
“I love private practice because I have the flexibility to find solutions for each individual, here and now,” Davis said.
In five short years, Davis has seen more than doubled growth in her business, as she is now running three facilities in each county she serves and is working to open another next year. Davis credits her success and her experience to her CEHS professors, including Dr. Carolyn Atkins and Dr. Vishakha Rawool, as well as the skills she learned in her program.
“When I started working for Dan Gardner in 2007 he said I was the best-trained student he had ever met,” Davis said. “Every school teaches the technical parts of our business, but the one thing that WVU does that nobody else does is teach life skills and how to learn throughout life. It doesn’t stop when you graduate.”
Davis also attributes her business success and marketing know-how to her experience as a graduate teaching assistant for Dr. Carolyn Atkins’ public speaking class.
“Dr. Atkins’ class taught me how to reach out to the community and how to better interact with my patients,” Davis said. “It gave me the confidence to present lectures in the community to educate others on hearing loss.”
Davis says her experience as a business owner has been synergistic, but credits her experience at WVU for her continued success.