In a conference room overlooking the city of Chicago, Life Ambulance Network’s (LAN) Leadership teams convened for their second annual leadership summit. In keeping with the company culture of innovation and growth, everything about this convention would turn out to be perfectly unconventional.
Now in its second year, the Life Ambulance Summit is the brainchild of LAN Chief Development Officer Shalom Bergovoy. Together with CEO John Herlihy and COO Gabe Kroll, their pioneering approach towards employee development, supportive work environment and highest standards of patient care, LAN has positioned itself at the forefront of EMS and the private ambulance industry.
As a growing company expanding to new states and counties the annual LAN summit serves as a great opportunity for current and new LAN leaders to build relationships and methods for success. With the theme of “Growing Together” the LAN summit 2021 served as a catalyst for exponential growth. In welcoming everyone to the Summit CDO Shalom Bergovoy introduced the theme as “…One person may be able to push a car, all of us here working together can lift it!”
Following the introduction, Marc Halpert COO of Monarch Healthcare, brought his electric energy and signature style for an inspiring talk on cultivating culture and employee engagement.
From there our leaders broke out into 7 roundtable discussions categorized by department. It was a magical experience seeing the instant chemistry and ideas that flowed through the rooms of Life Ambulance network HQ. Following a short break, Aryeh Perlstein CEO of Pencilfry Creative Agency presented an interactive look at the future of marketing for LAN.
Dinner that night was at a local steakhouse, and the highlight of the night was the incredible comedy performances delivered by Christopher Rowe Director of Career Development at LifeLine MI, and Alberto Higareda Scheduling Manager at LifeLine IL.
The success of the summit was felt even before everyone departed for the airport, the camaraderie and inspiration was evident from the first breakout session.
Day 2 was held at the conference room of the Double Tree hotel. Following breakfast, presentations by COO Gabe Kroll and the Directors of Operations for all LAN locations, provided insightful data on the current state of each location and the goals they set for the future.
Other sessions included an engaging conversation on conversational skills with Kristen MacGregor (MI) and Ashley Marsh (IL) both in Human Resources at LifeLine Ambulance. As well as a fascinating glimpse into the finances of EMS presented by CEO John Herlihy & LifeLine MI Billing Manager Melissa Wall. Both sessions provided insight and lessons to help improve employee engagement and overall company performance.
After lunch was served the final session saw each attendee being assigned to a random group along with fellow leaders. Each group then congregated for a set amount of time with the goal of brainstorming ideas and solutions for common challenges that had been discussed at varying points throughout the summit.
The success of the summit was felt even before everyone departed for the airport, the camaraderie and inspiration was evident from the first breakout session. Yet it is clear that the biggest success of the summit will be in the new ideas, processes, growth and collaboration that has and will be born from this magical gathering.
