Heart to Beat, in the business of saving lives
By Laura Toraldo
(November 28, 2019—PHOENIX, Md.) Imagine you are playing tennis with your best friend on a crisp fall morning. Suddenly, your teammate clutches their chest and hits the ground. The next nine to 11 minutes are crucial, they are the moments that could save your loved one’s life. Would you be prepared?
Thankfully a small business in Baltimore County is making sure that over a thousand Marylanders are ready for situations such as this each year. Heart to Beat’s employees educate and train business professionals, lifeguards, construction workers, students, and more on the techniques that would improve victims’ chance for survival. You may say, it is in the business of saving lives.
Heart to Beat’s young business owner, Scott Kuhlman, established the company when he saw there was a need. Kuhlman said, “After working in the health care field, I came home call after call and there was one overarching theme—people were unprepared. I founded this company to put good training in people’s hands.”
For 26-year-old Kuhlman, ramping up his small business was passion-driven. He juggled everything from field work, to client interactions, finances, and IT. “The paycheck didn’t matter in the beginning,” he said. “It was so rewarding.”
Since Heart to Beat’s beginnings a little over two years ago, it has more than doubled its client reach. It now employs five health care professionals and Kuhlman said it is set to quadruple its clientele in the coming year.
“We are looking to scale this,” he said. “We are dabbling in multiple states and want to be a one-stop-shop for safety needs. While we want to grow, we don’t want to lose the personalized attention that our clients love and need. We are not willing to compromise on quality.”
While his business continues to advance, Kuhlman said the best advice he could give to other small business owners would be to find a mentor. “I’ve had so many people step up for me,” he said. “Now, I am focused on giving forward.”
