Hearing Mojo: USA Today: How Starkey Founder Bill Austin Does Well By Doing Good

USA Today: How Starkey Founder Bill Austin Does Well By Doing Good

USA Today has published a wonderful profile on Bill Austin, Founder and CEO of the biggest hearing-aid manufacturer in the U.S., Starkey Laboratories. It focuses rightly on the phenomenal degree of philanthropic work he's done, distributing free hearing aids to millions of people in need throughout the world. It also reviews his history as a super salesman of hearing aids, with his biggest breakthrough fitting President Ronald Reagan in 1983. Since then he's fitted four other presidents including G.W. Bush who wears Starkey earplugs while hunting to protect his hearing from gunshot noise. There's also a link to an additional interesting story on why hearing aids are so expensive. It's the most concise summary I've seen of: 1) the hefty R&D costs that have to be amortized across a market of far fewer units than typical consumer electronics products reach; and 2) the lack of insurance reimbursement for hearing aids. Mostly though it's an inspiring story of an all-American entrepreneur and innovator who single-handedly helped build an industry, then used his hard-won riches to help out others around the world.

Posted by David at 05:09 PM on Aug 11, 2006 in INDUSTRY NEWS, PEOPLE

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Comments

Sir,
I think U r now in india to sell Hearing Aids to poor and financial problem family...
I'm one of this people...I've hearing problem from my birth. So that I cant buy that aids due to financial problem...
I request u to give me the suggestion how to get that?

Posted by: vijaysatya | October 24, 2007 07:01 AM

Hi, This looks like a great site, but doesn't seem to have been updated in a bit. Is it still active? I'm interested in exchanging links if you're interested. My site is http://www.hearingexchange.com and is a blog and resource community filled with information and articles. Please check it out. Thank you!

Paula Rosenthal
HearingExchange

Posted by: Paula Rosenthal | March 15, 2007 06:50 PM

Keep up the great work on your blog. Best wishes WaltDe

Posted by: WaltDe | August 31, 2006 10:46 PM

Hello David and Readers,
I am exploring the web, starting to learn about Blogs, and looking for Blogs about hearing/hearing loss. I found this one, and notice that there are no comments to any of the front page people stories. How many readers are there? Do other topics on this blog have more replies and comments?
I belong to a few LD/HOH online forums (some very active). Your thoughts?

Posted by: Lauren | August 20, 2006 09:17 AM