After running a successful business in the health-care industry,
Mike Earley is looking for new challenges on both the professional and personal fronts.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Michael M. Earley describes his success as opportunistic.
“I went where I saw opportunities,” said Earley, the recent chairman and chief executive officer of Metropolitan Health Networks in Boca Raton. “From 1986 through 1997, I worked for a couple of holding companies that had a lot of businesses and I had the opportunity to work with the companies that weren’t doing so well. I naturally ended up with them. In my life situation, although I’ve been married, I’ve never had family or kids to tie me down, so they’d say, ‘Send Mike.’ I stumbled into it and realized that I liked working in this environment.”
Ten years ago, Earley, 57, was recruited to look at Metropolitan Health Networks and determine if there was a path forward for the company.
“Its main business owned and contracted with primary care practices, which focused on seniors. And as you can imagine, in Florida, that’s a terrific business opportunity.”
When he began in 2003, the company had 100 employees and revenue was about $100 million. The company never made a profit in its then seven-year history. Ten years later, there are 1,200 employees.
The company earned a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011 and by December 2012 it had become an $800 million revenue business that took care of 80,000 Florida seniors.
Earley, who lives in coastal Boca Raton, has received his share of awards for his efforts. Last summer, he was selected as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the health care category. In October 2012, Metropolitan Heath Networks was named No. 5 on Forbes List of America’s Best Small Companies and in December 2012, Humana bought Metropolitan Health Networks for $850 million.
He didn’t have a health care background, but being an outsider helped, he said. “I started to learn a lot about health care and its challenges. I began to realize that our health care system was in horrendous shape and facing problems.”
In turning the business around, he sold or closed down other less important health-related businesses that the company was pursuing and focused on the business that owned primary care practices. He treated his employees well, and kept an open line of communication with them.
But he also made a basic change that made a big difference. “In a single phrase, this industry calls the people it serves patients. We decided to call them customers,” he said.
“The health care business focuses on the physician, hospitals and technologies, but often you don’t see the focus on the patient. We tried to do everything that we could do to put the customers in the center of the business model, and to make this a better experience for them. That triggered a lot of operational change in the business.”
Those included customer-service training courses and measuring the quality of service.
A complaint he received about a doctor telling a patient to get out and stay out of his office is what got him thinking, he said.
“I sat down with this doctor, a terrific physician but with a relatively short fuse, and said, ‘Well, I don’t think you can do that. She may be difficult but she needs care and she represents a business opportunity for us.’
“A store manager would never treat customers that way. They’d never go back to the store and they’d tell all their friends not to go there, either.”
After Humana purchased Metropolitan Health Networks, Earley continued to work through this February. Now he’s enjoying life while looking for new opportunities. He enjoys fine restaurants and fine wine (he recommends Ameroni and Insignia). He’s planning to dive, likes to bike, works out and loves golf.
“I am going to take some of the focus I’ve had on my career and put it in investing in my personal life,” he said. “I admire people who have broad and interesting circle of friends and I’d like to be more like that and I’m going to work on it. I would like to have more people know me.”
— Christine Davis
Q. Where did you grow up and go to school?
A. I grew up in San Diego and earned bachelor degrees in business administration and accounting from the University of San Diego. My father was a career Navy fighter pilot from Boston and my mother an Illinois farm girl. They seemed to enjoy the warm, dry Southern California weather and lifestyle.
Q. What are some highlights of your life?
A. I’ve been lucky in my life, always working in interesting and fun business situations. I worked my way through school in the SCUBA diving business and then began my career with Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young).
Like the Army, it was a great place to start.
I spent the late 1980s as an executive with two dynamic, diversified public-holding companies based in San Diego: Intermark Inc. and Triton Group Ltd. We enjoyed the ups and downs of the financial markets, learned about a lot of businesses and ultimately sold the combined business in 1997. I was CEO at that point.
I then did a handful of business turnaround projects, the last of which began in early 2003 in South Florida. A six-month assignment turned into a 10-year run. We fixed Metropolitan Health Networks Inc., a then struggling small public company, and dramatically grew it.
We earned a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, something I take great pride in, and then sold the business to Humana in late 2012 for about $850 million.
It was all very exciting and I enjoyed working with a great team. I’m now enjoying catching my breath!
Q. How did you choose to make your home in Boca Raton?
A. The Metropolitan assignment brought me to West Palm Beach. I looked for a community that suited me, and that was Boca. I enjoy the people, the dining and shopping and the outdoor lifestyle of the east Boca community.
Q. What is your favorite part about living in Boca Raton?
A. East Boca presents an interesting and comfortable mix of old and new. It’s easy to navigate and has a sense of community.
Q. If you could change anything in your life, what would it be?
A. That’s a hard one. I’ve been lucky and have enjoyed my life. I used to wish I had continued my formal education but I don’t anymore. I had the opportunity to learn and grow along the way, and I have become a continuous learner about business and about life.
Q. If someone made a movie of your life, who would you like to play you and why?
A. Let’s just say someone who can sing and dance better than me!
Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
A. Rock ’n’ roll into alternative rock gets me going. I grew up watching all of the great concert acts in the 1970s. When I want to relax, there are a lot a great artists from the ’60s and ’70s with calming, introspective music. Think Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Mark-Almond and Cat Stevens.
Q. What do people not know about you that you wish they knew?
A. I simply wish more people knew me, that I would have a wider circle of friends. The focus on my career, my work has been pretty intense over the years. I hope and intend to spend more time on other aspects of my life as I move forward.
Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. One that comes to mind is one that comes out of the turnaround business: “If you want to finish first, you must first finish.”
Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. I have been lucky enough to have had terrific mentors throughout my life, beginning with my father, Walt. He had more guts than anyone I know. I did SCUBA diving through high school and college, and I worked for the Nicklin family. They were great people and in that business they taught me how to relate to and treat customers.
Chuck Patrick at Ernst taught me to take on the hard assignments. That opened up a lot of doorways. I met Red Scott, an icon in the San Diego community, when I was a young professional at Ernst. He hired me in the mid-1980s, and he’s taught me about life and business. Today, he’s still a close friend.
Harvey Gelman of Broken Sound has been a steadying force for almost 10 years. I joined a Vistage group nine years ago, which meets monthly, and Harvey is the chairman of our group. Harvey and his wife, Judy, have become my South Florida family.
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