We were lucky to catch up with Alan Staples recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alan, appreciate you joining us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

A young man who had never traveled away from his hometown on his own once traveled 800 miles from the Heartland to the colorful, fast-paced bustling of Atlanta Georgia. This trip was one of his first assignments with a big, prestigious healthcare corporation to support a big, prestigious hospital – a setting in which he’d never been except with family – in teaching new technologies to many night nurses – a role he had never held.

Despite his anxiety and excitement on that first nightshift, it was an uneventful and painfully slow night compared to the pace of the city outside those 4 walls just hours before. He eagerly paced the halls of a post-anesthesia care unit to make sure the clinical staff knew he was there to help with a smile on his face. Around 1 in the morning he passed by one of the patient rooms in making his rounds for the 400th time, but this time, a weak, mumbling voice called out from the darkness through an open door. The young man paused. Listened. Looked around and then panicked as simultaneously the voice called out again and he realized there were no nurses in sight.

After speed-walking around the unit and finding someone in scrubs, he shared, “there’s a patient in room 304 who sounds… well I’m not sure, but he sounds like he’s in pain. And he’s weak!”

They swiftly walked together around the unit to that room. The nurse entered. The young man respectfully stayed in the hall, expecting a “code something-or-other” while they rushed to get more nurses to help the voice in the room. Instead, the nurse came out with a smile on her face and said, “he wants you.”

“Me? I’m not clinical. I’m don’t know how to do anything. Are you sure I’m even allowed to be in there?” He pleaded.

Her grin grew to her very kind eyes with a hint of amusement. “It’s okay. He wants you.”

The young man stepped in slowly, unsure of himself, as if he was disturbing a sanctuary in which he did not belong. Lying on his bed, illuminated only by the ambient light from the hallway, was a much older man wearing a hospital gown and with lines and tubes going in and out of him. The man in bed unevenly spoke with excitement, “you! You work with computers.”

“What?”

“You work with computers, right? I’ve seen you out there. You know, my son works with computers, too. Do you know him?”

The younger man looked back at the nurse, unsure what to do. She tilted her head, apparently finding his naivety adorable. “He’s just had his lung removed. Cancer. It’s just the pain meds talking. Chances are he won’t remember this conversation tomorrow, but he likes you. You’re bored anyway. I’ll leave you two to talk.”

Serene peace and satisfaction grew immediately on the older man’s face as the young man took a seat. In the dark corner of a sterile room, the young professional talked with an exceptionally loopy stranger who had just had an entire lung removed. About 30 minutes later, the older man fell asleep while talking, and the younger man stood to leave the room, more careful to be quiet than if he had just lulled a newborn to sleep.

Thus began my 16 year (and counting) love of healthcare, human beings, and service.

Alan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

During college, eBay had just become a thing, and the thought of making money was even more exciting than waking up to attend morning classes. I started selling specialty lightbulbs, made a little money, and treated myself to a very crappy video projector. Not many college kids have their own video projector. At the time not many grown-ups did either – projectors were very expensive. But I was an aspiring engineer, and I valued money more than the classroom, so I developed a do-it-yourself kit for people who wanted to build their own video projectors on the cheap. Within 3 years, I had shipped products to 3 continents and was grossing about $130,000 in revenue. Money was fun, but I (thankfully) realized this was not a sustainable path for me – I eventually needed to attend classes to actually graduate, and people weren’t going to want to build their own video projectors forever.

I sold the company, become a good student, and graduated as an exceptionally good computer engineer … who didn’t feel much personal fulfillment developing software for a living. So naturally I applied for a job as a software developer with some company called “Cerner”. Once I interviewed, I learned 2 very exciting things about Cerner: (1) their mission was important and audacious, and (2) they had other roles for engineers besides software development!

At Cerner, I have learned volumes about healthcare, diagnostic medicine, surgery, team-building, and more. I have met several hundred wonderful and driven people, both within the company and within the customers whom they serve. I even had the humbling experience of leading a Congressional briefing on the opioid use disorder epidemic at our nation’s capital. But selfishly, the absolute best part of my journey there was meeting a particularly brilliant and adorable person, Karen, who later agreed to marry me.

While I am still serving healthcare at Cerner by growing and leading exceptionally bright professionals, I have a passion for the human and environmental wellbeing of our community.

In 2019, my wife and I co-founded an organization, Food Cycle KC, after learning how many people in our region experience food insecurity despite the unfathomable amount of uneaten food that is added to the landfill each year. Our mission follows very simply: to eliminate food waste and make sure everyone has access to something good to eat. We and our 10 employees serve that mission by completing the “food cycle” by providing a service to collect food waste from residents and businesses, composting these on our farm, and giving compost back to community gardens and farms to grow more healthy produce. My wife, her team, and our members are really the heroes – my contributions are more as a supportive husband and aspiring farmer these days.

This year, I became a volunteer with University Health Truman Medical Center, which is an academic provider of healthcare in the heart of our Kansas City metro area. Theirs is a totally inspiring story of service and growth as they’ve served as a community “safety net” hospital while also growing new clinical professionals and offering leading clinical techniques. I am exceptionally proud of the work they do, and it is a tremendous honor to work alongside them in any capacity.

Shortly after applying to volunteer at UH, my leadership acumen, sustainability focus, and desire to serve others came to a serendipitous intersection. It turns out that social media is more than hilarious cat videos and blood-boiling political arguments. Thanks to an unexpected Instagram exchange, I learned about Food For The Cure, which is a local nonprofit organization that knows from experience both how much cancer sucks and how much organic foods can make a difference in health and happiness. When I reached out to learn more, I met Andrew Fitzgerald, who shared with me the story of his mother, Debra, and how despite the very advanced and expensive treatments she was receiving, something as simple as healthy nourishment was hard to come by at that time for her. As I’ve learned from him and others, this is a very common experience,

Many whom I love dearly have managed a chronic illness. While the care received is wonderful, the food options in care settings is often mushy, fatty, processed, and unappetizing. Imagine how much your body needs nutrients if you were combating a disease like cancer, but the treatments and disease made you lose your apatite. Then you look around and your most available and affordable options are pre-packaged and processed foods. We can help others have the option of organic, nutritious foods by growing it locally and offering it for free. It’s not about people who are “needy”. It’s about humans being worthy of the happiness and healthiness of good food.

Andrew and his board of directors must have seen how passionate I was about their cause. This week, I very happily was voted in as the vice president of the board for Food For The Cure, where my heart is very happy to serve its mission and my mind is very engaged in sustaining growth of this organization so we can provide our benefit to more of the wonderful people who going through extraordinary health experiences.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

Absolutely. If we won the lottery tomorrow, my wife and I agree that we would become fulltime volunteers for our community and benefactors of other amazing organizations in the metro. So, given absolute financial freedom now or a DeLorean ride back in time to do it all over again, I would continue to serve in these ways.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Communicate openly, with vulnerability and transparency especially with anyone whom you consider a partner. Do what you say. Just as many of us were raised to “leave any space cleaner than how you found it”, breathe your positivity and supportive energy into every interaction. Listen with genuine interest and empathy for the other party.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.foodcyclekc.com
• Instagram: foodcyclekc1
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/alan-h-staples