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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:00.000] - Chad Lacek
Leadership in many ways overlaps with respect and admiration. Someone that you respect and admire, I don't care what rank is on their collar or their shoulder, that's a leader.
[00:00:12.310] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. Today's guest is Chad Lacek, CEO of Aging In Place Monitoring and Marine Corps Veteran. Welcome to the show, Chad.
[00:00:22.310] - Chad Lacek
Thanks so much for having me, John.
[00:00:23.680] - John S. Berry
Chad, tell us, what is Aging In Place?
[00:00:27.280] - Chad Lacek
I'm sure many of your viewers have heard of the concept of Aging In Place. It's the idea that we want our loved ones to be able to stay in their home safely for as long as they possibly can. Folks don't want to transition into new environments, especially if they've been in that home for 30 or 40 years.
[00:00:44.460] - John S. Berry
Let's just stop right there because we know this is not just about aging. You could have a disabled Veteran that you're living with. You could have a special needs child. This is about monitoring. It's not just for the person who is injured or needs the help. It's for the peace of mind for the family members.
[00:00:58.760] - Chad Lacek
That's a great point. That's especially true for those Veterans who live in rural areas where they're far from the nearest care facility. A lot of times, those folks are isolated and alone. You're exactly right. That's the perfect use case for these tools to make sure that these folks are taken care of.
[00:01:14.480] - John S. Berry
I've got a father, a Vietnam Veteran, 87 years old, and he gets aid attendance through the VA, through his VA disability benefits. They send someone to his house to walk him on the block so that we don't have to. But the question is, even with all those benefits that we get as Veterans, especially our aging Veteran population, they don't get this service. There's a real need in the market because if you've got an aging parent who's a Veteran or a spouse, you can't be there all the time. You want peace of mind.
[00:01:41.500] - Chad Lacek
There's a huge amount of guilt that goes along with that, especially when folks are living out of town, it's quite a burden to be driving three or four hours each way to try and visit. A lot of these folks, too, they're also raising their families. They've got small children, and they're stretched in these directions. It also causes a lot of friction in the family. You've got brothers and sisters arguing like, I went last time, it's your turn. We're really trying to lower the temperature on all that. Once all these sensors are in place, we've got sensors that are underneath the mattress of the bed, the cushion of a chair. We've got access to the refrigerator, pill dispensing, all the biometrics, weight, blood pressure, pulse oximeters, you name it. Once all these things are in place, they're practically invisible. Now remotely from anywhere, you can see and answer the question, how's mom doing? Is dad okay? And not only do you have all that information, with the software that we have, we've got an application for your iPhone or your Android device, you can set up guardrails around the things you're worried about. So, if mom's got elopement issues, you want to know.
[00:02:43.660] - Chad Lacek
If she's out of bed in the middle of the night for longer than a bathroom break, I want a phone call. And if I don't answer that phone call, I want somebody to get a text message. Maybe I need the neighbor to go stop by. I don't want to find out tomorrow morning, she's been wondering around lost in the neighborhood for six hours. Just having those guardrails in place means I don't need to stare at this all the time. I don't need to be worried about looking at this. Just knowing that I have the access in my pocket gives me that peace of mind, and everybody sleeps a little better.
[00:03:10.380] - John S. Berry
I mean, it's not a new technology per se because we use this for our home security system, but you're expanding it to really understanding the habits of the loved one and the timelines. You know if something's off.
[00:03:26.140] - Chad Lacek
Exactly. That's a great point. Most people think about technology in the home is it's either cameras or it's the iPhone and I can't get up.
[00:03:34.380] - John S. Berry
Right.
[00:03:35.450] - Chad Lacek
Everyone has that in their mind because of that very memorable commercial. But technology has advanced well beyond that. We're talking 20, 30 years later now. By the time we're worried about falls and things like this, we're already well down that aging pathway. There's been a lot of worry and concern leading up to that. We're coming in at that earlier stage, right when you start to have that, uh oh, Mom just told me the same story three times in a row. The lights are going like, uh oh, it begins. That's when we want to come in, put all these things in place, because just as you said, with that information, we can also look and see. Mom usually gets about seven hours of sleep a night. Now I notice she's only getting three for like the past week and a half. What happened a week and a half ago? We had a doctor's visit, and the doctor changed some prescriptions. Then you can at least proactively call the doctor, hey, is what you did potentially have a side effect that causes insomnia or discomfort, et cetera?
[00:04:34.800] - Chad Lacek
You can get ahead of problems before there's other more serious issues as a result down the road.
[00:04:41.060] - John S. Berry
Let's talk now about growing your company. You're a Marine Corps Veteran. You know a little bit about leadership. What's the journey been like?
[00:04:48.240] - Chad Lacek
Well, it's been very interesting. I acquired this company, July will be two years. It was originally designed as a B2B service. This was institutional hospitals, memory care units were using this. The way that they were deploying the technology was to offset what I consider to be an inadequate staff. They've got two people in 75 rooms, and so they're using it to keep the fires at a low level.
[00:05:17.320] - John S. Berry
Like triage.
[00:05:17.950] - Chad Lacek
Exactly. If something happens that can't wait, then they'll stop what they're doing and they'll go respond to that, and then they'll resume where they left off. I feel very strongly that the highest and best use of this is direct to the consumer. We call it peace of mind in a box because there's so many people that have that. I've talked to so many people here today of the anxiety that they have around somebody they care about that they wish they could keep a better tab on. We're launching a direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform, first of all, to let everybody know that this exists. Most of the folks we talk to, they go, oh, that's a great idea, but they hadn't heard of it.
[00:05:55.920] - Chad Lacek
We have the challenge of not only educating the consumer-
[00:05:59.360] - John S. Berry
Top of the funnel awareness.
[00:06:00.000] - Chad Lacek
You got it. We got to educate the consumer, and then they're able to make that decision of whether or not this is right for them.
[00:06:05.560] - John S. Berry
Outstanding. Let's take this to the after-action review. Your examples of great leadership and poor leadership. It can be from the military or from what you've learned growing this business.
[00:06:14.160] - Chad Lacek
Sure. In the military, particularly my experience in the Marines, as soon as you get out of boot camp, in my case, I was a Lance Corporal, but most folks are PFCs or privates, and you're suddenly placed around these folks that have just been in longer. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're great leaders. It just means time in great, time in service. They're sergeants and staff sergeants that you have to obey. It doesn't necessarily make them great leaders. What I found very, I realized very quickly is that leadership in many ways overlaps with respect and admiration. Someone that you respect and admire, I don't care what rank is on their collar or their shoulder, that's a leader. That leadership by example, that motivation where I'm listening and following to this individual because I don't want to disappoint them.
[00:07:09.260] - John S. Berry
And the bad.
[00:07:11.520] - Chad Lacek
Well, there's lots of examples of bad. As I say, when you I've encountered these folks where they've gotten to where they are simply because they've hung around longer than anyone else, it's uninspiring. Unfortunately, I feel like there's no changing that situation. You've got to extract yourself. Many times, I'll just realize that in order to live the life I want to live, I want to be around. I want to spend my time with people that I respect and admire. That's actually why I decided to acquire a company, is so that I had more agency in who am I spending my time with.
[00:07:44.900] - John S. Berry
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you get to control who you're going to be here to, who you're going to help, who's on your team. I think you talk a lot about the timing grade. I think that's interesting because I think that breeds entitlement. Veterans get out of the military. I've done this for this long, and it doesn't matter. What value can you provide? If you can't provide the value to the marketplace, it doesn't matter. Just because you build it doesn't mean they're going to come. They feel their dreams in Iowa. If you build it, it doesn't work that way. There has to be a need, and you have to provide value, and you get paid based on the value we provide.
[00:08:17.700] - Chad Lacek
100%, absolutely.
[00:08:19.360] - John S. Berry
Chad Lacek, where can Veterans and others learn about you and your company?
[00:08:24.480] - Chad Lacek
Yeah. So Aging In Place monitoring, our website is aipmonitoring. Com. We've a whole bunch of devices that you can deploy to build those guardrails around the things that are making you lose a little sleep.
[00:08:42.680] - Speaker 3
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.