We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erika Jordan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erika below.
Erika, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
A defining moment in my professional career was when I had to learn how to grow my business while growing my family.
Being a female business owner, I’ve been told that I would never be able to be a respected businesswoman and have kids at the same time. People would tell me that there would never be enough time for both, but I knew that having a family was one of my goals in life. I am so thankful for my growth and the knowledge I’ve gained in order for me to become who I am today.
I have dealt with negative opinions and doubts from others my whole career and these negative comments are what drives me to succeed even more than expected to show others that it can be done.
Erika, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am the proud founder and owner of Hyperbaric Healing Treatment Center, a premier private hyperbaric oxygen therapy concept with medical centers in Orlando and New Smyrna Beach, Florida. If you’re not familiar with the treatment, hyperbaric oxygen therapy works by exposing the body to an atmosphere of 100% oxygen, in an enclosed chamber where the atmospheric pressure is increased and controlled. The treatment accelerates the healing process by allowing more oxygen to reach damaged areas.
My journey to owning my own treatment center started at the beginning of my career when I started working for a private physical therapist who also offered hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I was working this job while going to school full time on nights and weekends to pursue a degree in Diagnostic Medical Sonography. Every extra minute I had while at work, I enjoyed speaking to the operator and hearing first hand so many amazing recovery stories from the patients that were getting results for conditions that were deemed untreatable.
After I graduated with my degree, the chamber operator for the physical therapist was leaving, and they had an opening for the hyperbaric chamber operator. The opportunity for me to take this job was the turning point in my life where I had to make a huge decision to continue the path I was on or start a new one. While the job was not aligned with the degree I had just spent the past two years pursuing, I really enjoyed the hyperbaric field and decided to take the full-time position with a major pay cut to do what I truly loved.
Once I started in the position, I was spurred by passion for helping patients heal, and quickly rose to become the Facility Manager and Safety Director. I undertook additional hyperbaric training in Transcutaneous Oxygen Monitoring and Inspection, Maintenance, and Documentation of Hyperbaric Chamber Acrylics.
While employed at that facility, I had the opportunity to treat patients for a wide range of diagnoses from migraines and sports-related injuries to Crohn’s disease and fibromyalgia.
At the same time, I continued to grow my education. I became an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) with a degree from Palm Beach State College, a Certified Hyperbaric Technologist (CHT) with the National Board of Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Technology, and a Certified Hyperbaric Specialist (CHS) with The American Board of Wound Healing (ABWH).
After nearly eight years in that position, I decided to move closer to my hometown near Orlando to grow my career in the hospital sector. While in Central Florida, I ran multiple hospital-affiliated facilities as their Senior Hyperbaric Safety Specialist, working to make changes for better patient care by achieving tasks like implementing nearly fifty new safety policies and procedures.
From working in a hospital setting, I soon realized the disadvantages that those centers presented. At those facilities, we were limited to only treating 14 insurance-approved indications—meaning that many patients had to be turned away from receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment for not falling within their narrow treatment guidelines. Patients were also turned away if they did not have insurance or wished to pay out of pocket.
With the experience I’d gained from working in a private clinic, I turned my frustration at the lack of treatment opportunities into the goal of offering hyperbaric oxygen therapy to all patients in a cost-effective manner, and decided to open my own clinic. I found the perfect location in the Dr. Phillips area of Orlando, Florida and a few months later in 2017, we were ready to open Hyperbaric Healing Treatment Center. I started with two chambers and two team members. Within six months, I was starting to get busy, so I knew it was time to take another leap of faith and purchase two more hyperbaric chambers in hopes to fill them with patients who needed our services. At the time, most major hospitals had two chambers and it was unheard of to have a center busy enough to maintain four.
After four years in business, our center was full of all types of patients in need of treatment. We had five full-time team members and the best of both worlds with the ability to treat insurance conditions as well as cash-paying patients. I had patients traveling from all over Florida, outside the state, and even abroad.
Thanks to our amazing growth in such a short period of time, we opened a second medical center in New Smyrna Beach, Florida last year. The new center, named Hyperbarics New Smyrna, was established in an area where we knew more patients across Florida and beyond could access the transformative hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment offered at our facilities.
Over the years, we have treated many patients at Hyperbarics Orlando from New Smyrna Beach and nearby areas—Palm Coast, Ormond Beach, Daytona Beach, Deltona, DeLand, Titusville—that had to endure the long commute in order to heal. With this new location on the East Coast, conveniently located off I-95, these patients no longer have to drive over an hour to seek treatment. We also hope that others who could not visit us due to distance will now have this treatment option located closer to where they live.
Since opening up our New Smyrna location, I have given birth to our beautiful baby girl, Ella Alice Jordan. For my husband Justin (co-owner of Hyperbaric Healing Treatment Center) and I, being able to bring Ella in the office with us is such a blessing. Now, we’re even more excited for what the future will bring. We will continue to operate and run our business with our mission to provide top-of-the-line hyperbaric oxygen therapy with world-class customer service in order to improve our patients’ outcomes and quality of life.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I have the best business partner ever! A man who I’ve known and loved for 16 years, my husband, Justin. We met at the age of 16 while working at a resort in the activities department. By age 18, we started dating and never separated. We moved from Orlando to South Florida where I found and fell in love with the field of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, while Justin owned and operated a fishing charter business.
Justin has seen me grow in every facility and position I’ve been in while working in my field. With his business degree and background combined with my medical degree/certifications and experience with hyperbaric operations, we decided to open up our own company in Orlando in 2017.
In the beginning, it was hard to separate our relationship and work life, but over the years, we have figured it out and were able to grow our business as well as our family. Communication is key and super important in whatever you do in life!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In small businesses, sacrifices are made everyday that most never see nor will business owners complain about. My biggest accomplishment has been building, growing, and maintaining our second location in New Smyrna.
Most do not know this about us, but as we were finishing our buildout for the New Smyrna Beach location, Justin and I decided it would be best for me to live in a trailer in New Smyrna during the week to avoid the 190 mile commute from home to the office. This gave me plenty of time to be there for final inspections, training of our new team, and building relationships with nearby providers/medical facilities.
I found out the Friday evening before I was due to leave for three months to live in New Smyrna that we would be expecting our first child. Timing was not the best, but as we say “We will figure it out,” and we did. I ended up spending most of my pregnancy living in the trailer, going to work each day, and faking it until I made it during 18 weeks of morning sickness.
When it was finally time to go home, we had team member turnover at the three month mark, and I had to stay for an additional four months. At eight months pregnant, I returned home just in time to be ready for sweet Ella’s arrival.
I was back at work three days after an emergency C-section. I worked remotely and part-time for 12 weeks. After returning back to the office full-time after 12 weeks, I had team member turnover at our New Smyrna Beach location again. Training is one of the most crucial parts of my business as it is what makes us stand out the most, so Justin and I once again decided it would be best to move the trailer back to New Smyrna to train our new safety director.
Sure enough, exactly three days after being in the trailer, I felt ill and realized I was pregnant again!
This was definitely unexpected as I was a new mother, exclusively breastfeeding, living in a trailer, training new team member all day, and now facing more morning sickness with a second baby on the way.
I thought the first move was the hardest, but this was by far the biggest sacrifice I have had to make for my business and my family. We made it through and are now stronger than ever!
Sweet Ella loved the trailer life, while working everyday with me. These sacrifices made me grow as a person, mother, and business owner.
It is possible to take on the impossible. Sometimes things may seem unattainable, but stay focused and positive, take on one task at a time, and in the end it will all be okay.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hyperbaricsorlando.com/
- Instagram: @hyperbaricsorlando
- Facebook: @Hyperbaricsorlando
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyperbaricsorlando/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkzbOo1GD0CUsSqhbZ4eFnA
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/hyperbaric-healing-treatment-center-orlando