How Far Have You Traveled?
(5 votes, average: 4.8 out of 5)September 30, 2009 by Erin Casey
Fran Lessans took the phrase “find a need and fill it” to heart and built a thriving business.
When a door closes, Fran Lessans is tenacious enough to keep knocking until it reopens—or looking until she finds a new one. The CEO and president of Passport Health has worked to prove herself and her business model in the medical industry.
“Being a nurse and a woman was a challenge,” Lessans says. “There were a lot of roadblocks.” The stigma that, as a woman, she wasn’t intelligent or savvy enough kept some hospital CEOs, her initial prospects, from agreeing to see her. She finally determined to take on a male, minority investor early in the life of her business. It seems (almost) unimaginable now, but in the early 1990s, discrimination against women was still so fierce that she realized she “needed that deep voice” to do presentations.
Finding a Niche
Lessans’ past experiences as a registered nurse, educator and health administrator have all played into her success with Passport Health®. In fact, it was during her tenure as the director of a university health-based service that the idea for Passport Health was born. While working at the university, Lessans advised students who were preparing for international trips to get immunizations to protect them from diseases they might be exposed to while traveling. The students were frustrated, not only because of the cost of the vaccinations, but also by the lack of information about which shots they needed. Lessans also knew that, at the time, the recorded phone messages at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were often outdated and that few physicians stayed up to date on travel medicine. In answer to the students’ dilemma, she created materials to educate students on the diseases they might encounter while traveling, how they were transmitted, and what they would need to do to protect themselves. She quickly became the go-to person for students, faculty, friends and family members who needed information on travel immunizations.
In 1994, Lessans launched Passport Health in affiliation with a hospital in Baltimore. Shortly thereafter, satellite locations were opened along the Baltimore beltway. And in 1997, Lessans sold the first Passport Health franchise. Today, Passport Health is a $38 million business with more than 60 franchisees operating approximately 170 locations nationwide. The company has stayed true to its original purpose to serve the needs of student travelers and business and leisure travelers by offering a wealth of travel health information online, as well as the vaccinations themselves.
In addition to travel medicine, Passport Health offers immunizations that support healthy living, takes referral calls from the CDC on a 24-hour hotline, and is working with various organizations to help develop new vaccines through clinical trials. Lessans’ reputation as a vaccine and travel medicine expert has opened new opportunities to speak to a variety of groups, including the Federal Drug Administration about flu vaccines and the Department of Defense on responses to bioterrorism.
The Joy of Independence
Lessans enjoys the freedom of being self-employed. “I’m not beholden to anyone,” she says. “But I have a personal objective to help others and give back.” And because she didn’t have any mentors, Lessans gives back by mentoring business owners and nurses and by serving on the Board of Visitors at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
Her desire to give back is also manifested through her business model, which offers assistance in times of need. The independence her privately-held company maintains gives Passport Health the agility it needs to respond to crises. Because there is far less red tape and bureaucracy when it comes to making decisions, her national network of medical professionals was able to quickly move in response to the anthrax attacks in 2001 and 2002. And when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, her team was able to provide vaccinations to first responders, utility workers and contractors before FEMA arrived on the scene.
By drawing on her strengths as a business woman and a medical professional, Fran Lessans has created a thriving business and a career she truly enjoys. For this nurse, breast cancer survivor, wife, mother and entrepreneur, reinventing her career was the right decision. And when moments of frustration arrive, she remembers that success is relative.
“Success is the distance traveled,” Lessans says. “Where did you start and where are you going to end up? I started at zero and reached $38 million this year. How far have you traveled?”
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Great story on Fran beating many odds to realize the creation of Passport Health.
Way to go Passport Health!
Fan is an inspiration to other women who are struggling in a world where women are still not recognized for their contribution to society. Her example encourages other women to follow through with their plans to accomplish their goals, belief in themselves and never give up.