DMEPOS Warriors: Halo Wound Solutions

Published in Member Communities on April 28, 2020

Meet Tracy Lucas, co-owner of Halo Wound Solutions! Tracy has been a VGM member since 2016. Tracy and his business partner, Luke Esslinger, built their wound care business from the ground up, and they are now distributing wound care products nearly nationwide.

We asked Tracy about how he got started in the HME industry and how that led to the growth of their business and ability to take care of their customers in the wound care space.

Please describe your role and responsibilities with Halo.

I am the co-owner of Halo Wound Solutions. I started this business alongside my business partner, Luke Esslinger. My main responsibilities are building and working with our field employee team. I also work closely with our customers to make sure we continue to provide best-in-class customer service.

Can you tell us more about your background and how you originally got connected to the industry?

I started out working for Pfizer as a sales representative and eventually worked my way into a management position. This taught me a great deal about healthcare. My job was cut during a corporate downsizing, but this turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me professionally. I landed a job in wound care and found my passion. I discovered there was a great opportunity to create a surgical dressing company focused on servicing both the patients and the healthcare providers who care for these patients. 

Can you tell us more about how you built up your business and how it grew?

Luke Esslinger and I started the business on our own, and it was just the two of us for quite a while. We found that when you focus on helping people get the products they desperately need to heal their wounds, the growth of the business will take care of itself. We added office staff, shipping employees, customer service agents, and sales representatives one by one as we grew. Now we have about 70 employees. We focus on the patient and the caregiver. We have a "patients before profits" mentality.

What are some of the growing pains you’ve experienced in the industry and how have you overcome them?

Growing pains are a huge part of any new company. The best way to overcome growing pains is to hire great people, and we have consistently done that. Our team is amazing. When you have great people, the obstacles are much easier to overcome. If you don’t have great people, growing pains are impossible to get past. 

How does Halo value their customers?

Our business is unique in that we have many customers to satisfy in the patientcare experience. Patients and healthcare providers are our customers, and they are our livelihood. If they are extremely happy with our service, then we are happy. Everyone says that, but at Halo, we truly live it.

What sets Halo apart?

When we started Halo, we asked hundreds of nurses what we needed to do differently than the enormous corporations in this industry. We took this advice to heart, and we still do these things today. When a person calls Halo, a person will answer, not a phone tree. We communicate the status on every order we receive. We also extended our return policy past the normal requirements. Our motto is “Fast, Friendly, and Hassle Free.”   

What is your “why” for working in this industry?

People want great service in all aspects of life. The medical industry tends to forget this from time to time. Be nice. Care for the people you are serving. Don’t focus on the profits. Instead, focus on the patient. 

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