Healthcare Leaders celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. Back in 2014, we were a small handful of acquaintances, some of whom had experienced position eliminations, were transitioning out of the military, or just plain looking for new and better opportunities. We were meeting twice a month, early in the morning, at a coffee shop on 281 trying to help each other make connections and identify opportunities. Over the course of a few months, we developed a little email following of two or three dozen people, many of whom had never been to our meetings. “We’d love to attend,” they would tell us, “but can’t make mornings, can you do something in the evening?”
At that point, we started doing an evening mixer the second Thursday (so as not to coincide with our friends at San Antonio IT Networking Group on the first Thursday) of each month. We’ve been hosting our networking events ever since. Like everyone else, we had an unwelcome hiatus forced on us by covid. We even had a newly launched and ultimately short-lived Houston chapter that was closed after only two meetings due to the lockdown. But, as things returned to normal, we concentrated on rebuilding our San Antonio group. After about a year, we were back to where we had been and beginning to grow even larger.
Over the years, we’ve had a lot of great sponsors, venues and speakers for our special events. As most of our regular attendees know, for many years we were at the Sustenio Restaurant at the Eilan Hotel. They were great and gracious hosts, but, sadly, we outgrew the space they could offer, and we set off exploring other locals. Our very first special event sponsor was the South Texas & Surgical Hospital for a luncheon hosted by the Bexar County Medical Society.
Although we began as a small group helping each other with job leads, over the years we have probably been more prolific in connecting people with new clients and new business. However, helping people connect with someone who can point them to a new job remains near and dear to our hearts and we are delighted if we can offer help in what can be a very trying and stressful time. We are dedicated to fostering business connections, and our goal is to do this in an atmosphere of community and familial support.
If you haven’t already done so, please join us sometime. Come and connect.
