Modular Devices
Greg Mink

Every year, a million or more men and women in the U.S. undergo “cardiac catheterization,” always in a high-tech hospital “cath lab.”  Big-city hospitals usually have several cath labs, but hospitals in smaller communities typically have only one.

Modular Devices of Indianapolis, IN, builds mobile cath labs, renting them to single-lab hospitals in smaller communities. Most such communities don’t have airline service, but they do have airports.

“A hospital in Pikeville, Kentucky called us with a cath lab irregularity the other day,” says Modular Devices co-owner Greg Mink. “We got on our Mitsubishi MU-2 turboprop and had it fixed within two hours of their call.” 

“In life-and-death situations like this, telling the hospital ‘we’ll be there tomorrow’ just doesn’t work.”

That sort of customer service has helped Modular Devices grow rapidly since its founding in 1987. “We’ll pick up a physician and take him or her to an actual mobile cath lab,” says Mink. “Doctors are always short on time, but this way the doctor can make rounds in the morning, do scheduled surgeries, hold office hours, inspect one of our mobile cath labs, and still be home for dinner.”

Such service makes an important statement to a customer, Mink says. “It says you value your customer’s time enough to fly him or her to a live demonstration of your product.

“There’s a huge misconception about business aircraft,” says Mink. “Like most well-run companies, we use our aircraft just like we would an automobile, except instead of going 15 miles back and forth to home, we go 600 miles back and forth to customers, all in one day.”