Chuck Masek At War With The Big Dogs- Episode 408 - Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast)

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Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I am so glad that you are here with us today for what I know is going to be another great conversation. Chuck Masek is a perennial entrepreneur who has grown and sold several businesses. Chuck has extensive experience in the healthcare industry and holds a Master of Science in Clinical Microbiology. He is the founder and former president and CEO of Vanguard Medical Concepts, Inc. At Vanguard, he innovated and developed the reprocessing of medical devices labeled single-use— excuse me— medical devices labeled single-use industry. He has spent his career striving to make positive and meaningful changes in healthcare. Chuck's new book, At War with the Big Dogs, is the true story reminiscent of David versus Goliath. In the book, Chuck tells of how he and a small group of hardworking, focused, and determined entrepreneurs forever changed medical device care industry. In the face of betrayal and overwhelming odds, this band of brothers fought with courage, commitment, and enduring faith and came together to disrupt the cash flow and business models of multi-billion-dollar corporations, which they affectionately called the big dogs. Chuck Massac has stopped by for a visit today, and I'm so glad he has. Chuck, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Well, thank you very much, Rick.

Well, I'm really glad to have a chance to sit and visit with you for a few moments today here on Voices in My Head. And I want to say congratulations too, because it's a big deal to be able to write a book, and I know that a lot of hard work has gone into that, and people who haven't written a book don't know the hard work that goes into that. So first of all, congratulations and well done on that new endeavor in writing.

Well, thank you.

Now, you are a successful businessman and you revolutionized a segment of the medical equipment industry, and I want to talk about that, but before we do, I want to go back to really into your younger days, to when you were 17 years old. And you had rejected God and you were on quite a different path in your life. And I wonder if, if before we got into the story of who you are now and some of the accomplishments that you have in your life, I wonder if you could start by telling us some of your backstory to when you were a younger person and some of the different decisions you were making at that time, which really could have led you to quite a different path.

Oh, sure. You know, I was raised, uh, Two parents. My dad was a career military man. He was a World War II veteran. He fought with the Marines on the Battle of Okinawa. And my mother was a hardworking lady. And my brother and I were raised by these two people. And I will say from the very beginning, they were honorable people. They were hardworking. My dad had this thing we now call PTSD. And that's when you have these spikes of temper that just go off the chart. And when you're young, you don't understand that. All you know is you're afraid. Hiding under the bed sometimes, crying, because we didn't know how the fights would end. Sometimes there would be blood, sometimes there wouldn't be blood. But during that time, my mother was very faithful to take us to church every day. I mean, from the time I can remember, we were always going to church. And my father was not as faithful. He didn't go for the most part. But during those early years, I can tell you one thing.

Really, I didn't know at that time, but the word of God had been planted in my heart, deeply in my heart. When I turned 17, I told my mother, "I'm not going to church anymore. I don't have to." She said, "Well, Chuck, I like when you go with me. We have a good time." I said, "Mom, I don't have to. My friends aren't gonna go. I'm not going." I never went back to church. Obviously a big mistake. So over the coming years, I had gotten in a little trouble, nothing major, but I went in the military. The draft was on at the time for the Vietnam War. I joined the Air Force. They sent me over to Greece, the island of Crete. And, uh, just doing things like GIs do, and nothing, you know, spectacular. But on that island, I met my wife. She's from North Dakota, was raised in the church also, and she was in Crete, and she was asking God, you know, if you want me to do something, show me something. The next day she met me, which I think is kind of funny. And long story short, uh, real quick story, she were leave base, we're in our van, a friend of mine's driving the van, and she's hitchhiking back to a town called Agios Nikolaos. She had left the base. She had come to the base to get peanut butter. There's a jet, a jet pumps, and she get— he'd get her peanut butter. Anyway, it's about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, it's January, it's cold. We're driving down the road, we see this girl, you know, hitchhiking, and, uh, we pick her up. So she gets in the VW van And I start giving her my best lines. Now keep in mind, I'm 19 years old, I look 16 and act like I'm 12. And, uh, the first words my wife ever said to me was, "How old are you?" And I thought, wow, how old? Well, I said, "How old are you?" She goes, "I'm 21." I go, "Well, I'm 22." She goes, "No, you're not." "No, I'm not. Show me your ID card." I'm not showing my ID card. I'm obviously lying. Who is it? Who is this person? Who does this? You know, doesn't she understand the game? How guys say their best lines, you're supposed to be Excited about that. But my wife's a North Dakota farm girl, very, uh, interesting girl, very soft-spoken person. And from that very time I said to myself, this is someone I really like. Long story short, we met, we spent some time in Crete. I got located back to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana, and we got married there in Bossier City. And it's interesting, the very time we got married, we started searching for God. And I'll never forget this. This guy named James Santo Stefano, he comes by and he's a Catholic, okay? And he gave us a gift. He said, "Here's Jesus, he's off the cross." And I said, "Yeah, I know that." "No, no, it's very important to me." And he was excited, but we weren't ready yet and we kind of discounted it, but he was really excited, okay? And then God sent more people into our lives, but the most important person at that time was a guy named Jim. Williams. He was a fellow student of mine. He said, hey Chuck, you want to go to church? Hey, sure, I'll go to church. But I wouldn't go. I just lied about it. He asked me 3 times. The 3rd time he said to me, hey Chuck, will you go to church with us? I said, sure. He goes, we'll pick you up at 9 o'clock. I go, whoa. So I go home and tell my wife, we've got to go to church. He's got— he's going to come get us. So we go to church. It's a little Presbyterian church. I'll never forget the first sermon. It was about the virgin birth. And how you cannot throw the virgin birth out and still be a Christian. I thought I was impressed by that, you know. But I told Jim, I said, I don't know if I want to go back again because there's nothing but hypocrites in church. He goes, yes, there are, Chuck, but there's always room for one more. Okay, so we went and through a Bible study, actually, we slowly became believers. I say slowly, we— it just, it didn't happen like one big flash, but it did happen. I'll never forget this. I was laying in bed one day There's a Bible on the nightstand. Everybody has Bibles, you know. Sure. And I, for some reason, opened the Bible to Matthew, and it's about the trial of Jesus. And I was unbelievable. They slapped— I said, what's going on? This guy's innocent. I mean, I had an actual visceral response. What's going on here? Isn't that strange? And for those humble beginnings, God brought more and more men and women in our lives that nurtured us, that supported us, and were very patient with us as we had a lot of questions. And we, you know, we did have a lot of questions, but God's faithful. He has all the answers, by the way. And from those humble beginnings, we became very strong believers. And I thank God for those early days. We'll be married 50 years this October. And I just— I think that I thank God for everything in my life, but I thank him mostly for my wife. She's an incredible person. She's so good. She You know, she's the one that's always supported me, said, Chuck, you can do this. I tell people all the time, I may be successful, but if that woman— obviously God is involved in the whole thing, but he put her in my life to push me and make me go farther than I thought I could go. And, uh, I tell people all the time, if you see— if you see footprints on my wife, they're not mine. She's one strong woman, I tell you what. But anyway, that's the humble beginning, how I became a believer. It's just— even to this day, I'll never forget those early days and what happened. It was so exciting. You know, when you first become a believer, you know, when I got saved, it was time for everybody else to get saved. And I was— remember, I knew the scriptures now, okay? I knew the scriptures. I'll tell you, Rick Lee James, there'll be people in heaven I'll meet, they're going to say, you know, Chuck, we got here, but it wasn't because of you. Yeah, because I was very— I was very excited, I guess the best way. Definitely. Wow.

And that's neat. It's, it's, it's very, it's a very neat part of your story to hear the way that you and your wife grew together, you know, in that way. And I love— and by the way, congratulations on your anniversary. I think that's a wonderful part of your story to get to share. And it's wonderful to hear the way that you grew together. And I just love that part of your story. That might be my favorite part of your tale of all of it, of all that you're going to share with us today, that's probably going to be my favorite part. I love the relational aspect of that. So thank you for sharing all of that. Well, let's dive a little more into your story and some more that you write in your book today. I know that you struggled some with a career path, and I think that a lot of us do struggle, maybe our whole lives, with our career paths and what we're going to do. And you are no exception to that. And I know that a lot of people listening right now, this is going to resonate a lot because right now we're in a time in our country, obviously because of the pandemic, there are a lot of people out of work, you know, at this point. And, and, and for, for no fault of their own, there's people needing jobs and they can't find them. Um, and they're just at a place wondering what they can do. And you're no stranger to that. You, you were at a place in your career, um, where you were kind of unfulfilled. You were looking for different things. And you literally overcame some big overwhelming odds with your career. I'd love for you to tell us kind of some of your story, and especially because your story has to do with the medical field, which is so relevant right now. I wonder if, without, you know, giving up too much of the story, because we do want people to read your book, At War with the Big Dogs, but, you know, tell us sort of the elevator pitch of your book so that people can have a little bit of insight into your tale.

Sure. You know, every— nothing happens by accident. Everything's built on another— every idea is built on another idea. There's really nothing new under the sun. And so what happened in 1965, the government passed the Medicare Act. Interesting. And what happened was, in those days, everything was reusable. They reused syringes and sharpened needles, etc. When the Medicare Act was passed, the government said that the hospitals will pay you whatever it costs to have surgery. It was crazy, by the way. So what happened from '65 to 1980, disposables took over the market. Because what the manufacturers realized, if you just put a label saying "colon single-use," by legal definition, it is single-use. Forget the science behind it. So what happened was, the single-use devices became the second highest cost in the surgery suite next to employees. It was crazy. So what the government then passes, what's called DRGs, Diagnostic Related Groupings. And what they said at the hospitals, basically, hey, we're not paying what you spend, we're paying X dollars. So for a gallbladder, we'll pay $500. For an eye, we'll pay $200. All of a sudden, the hospitals realize we got to save money. We can't build— keep billing the governor, so to speak. So over the next 9 years, they looking for how to save money. And that's when, through a series of events, I came up with reprocessing device labels, single-use. We cut hospitals' costs in half when they would use our service, okay?

Wow.

Now keep in mind, we're playing now in the big boy sandbox, and they don't like it. So what happened was we started reprocessing single-use devices, let's say, in the early '90s. And over the next 15 years is a running battle with the manufacturers. These are multi-billion dollar corporations trying to put us out of business. And they almost succeeded, but for the grace of God, things happened. And I tell people, you may think that I'm a very successful guy, I'm a smart guy, but let me tell you the truth about Vanguard. Certain things had to happen that if it didn't— and I didn't know how to happen— and if it didn't happen, we'd be out of business. So that tells me there's a, there's a bigger force working than just Chuck Massey. A true leader is nothing more than a great encourager. That's all he is. He says, "We're going this way. Everybody, come on. Keep your eye on the prize. Don't worry about the downside. Let's keep moving forward." That's what leaders do. Bosses don't do that. Bosses tell people what to do. Leaders lead people. And so through a series of events, we did survive. It's a long story about what the manufacturers did. The things they did were unethical for sure. I think sometimes illegal. But there's a greater force behind us and we survived. And when you read the book, people told me that they really liked the book because of this survivalist, David and Goliath. I wrote the book for two reasons. The first reason I wrote the book is to honor the men and women who served with me and Marge in this war. For their children and grandchildren to see what their parents did. That was the primary reason I wrote the book. The second reason I wrote the book was maybe there are people like myself, men and women who are struggling and not knowing what to do and there's big dogs after them, to let them know there's always hope. Don't ever give up. And so with those two things, those are the only two reasons I wrote the book. And the reason I'm doing these interviews and spending money on PR is because I want people to read the book. I don't really care about the money part. I want them to see what I went through. What God can do. And I try to be subtle in the book, not to be, if you will, a religious book, but a very subtle line. All the Christians will recognize it immediately, but the worldly person, they may not recognize it, but they're going to recognize something. And that's the book, it's sort of like my testimony, if you will, about what happened. It's an amazing story at the end of the day.

Well, let me, let me ask you, because as we're, we're nearing the end of our conversation and our time together today. I do want people to read the book, so we're going to make sure and put links on, on the website for my podcast so people can make sure and find your book. But since your book is a book about hope, I do want to ask you this question before our time is done today. What are you finding today that is giving you personally the most hope?

Well, that's a great question. You know, my wife has struggled with this last election. Okay, I mean struggle. And, uh, I said to my wife, honey, God is still on his throne. He hasn't gone anywhere. Okay, we know it's dangerous times to live in, particularly for Christians. I don't know what's going to happen, but it does give me pause. But I said to my wife, my Marge, Marge, God is still on his throne. He hasn't gone anywhere, and he loves us with an everlasting love. Now we may not like things that are going to happen, I understand that, but I remember the story of Corrie ten Boom and her sister in the concentration camps. And she caught her sister praying and thanking God for the fleas, and it just drove her crazy. But it turns out because of the fleas, the guards would not come in there and bother them. So no matter where we find ourselves, I don't care what the situation is, remember that God is on his throne and he loves us with an everlasting love. That he loved us so much he died for us, which is an amazing thing, that a good would die for evil. It's just, it's an amazing thing. So never lose hope that God is on his throne and that he loves you with an everlasting love.

And that is a terrific hope. Well, Chuck Massick, this has been a really great time to, to be able to visit with you for a few moments today and to be able to hear about your story. I want to congratulate you again on, on a Just a great job on this new book, At War with the Big Dogs, being able to tell your story. It really is a David versus Goliath story. We're going to make sure and have links to you and your book and your website at voicesinmyheadpodcast.com so people can find out more about your story. I find it fascinating, especially in this time where healthcare is so much at the forefront of everyone's mind and in our conversations, and that you have so much to do with at this story, and I just thank you for your work and the good work that you're continuing to do at this time. And I hope that a lot of people find so much good hope from reading your story and reading your book. So thank you for taking some time to visit and being one of the Voices in My Head this week.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at Rick Lee James .com, where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at RickLeeJames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.