I personally have a hard time wrapping my head around the person known as Crystal Mersh. When last I saw her in Calhoun County, she and her two goats were mowing the Wayne Underwood Field in Grantsville. Sporting her favorite bibbed overalls, a plain tee and tousled hair from the windy ride of the mower, she more or less looked like an eccentric grounds keeper hired by the 1982 Foundation to keep her out of trouble. She says she likes to do the mowing because it gives her time to think. And think she does… like nobody I’ve ever met.
Crystal invited me to join her on one of the days of a week long conference celebrating QxP’s 10th Anniversary. Quality Executive Partners is recognized globally as a premier consulting firm with extensive experience in the life sciences industries. Their unique approach includes offering a suite of services ranging from operating as executive coaches and interim operational leaders to mentoring department leaders and frontline operators. And if you understand that elevator speech description of her company, you’re ahead of me. While I don’t understand what they do, I’m a journalist not a scientist, I don’t have to understand it to see the success of her company, and how she inspires all those who choose to work with her. It’s a choice they made because, as many of them describe during the conference, when they met Crystal “Their whole world changed.”
That is what’s about to happen to the lives of three young ladies who submitted applications for a college scholarship made possible by QxP last spring. They were each awarded the scholarships, and then later offered the opportunity to work with Crystal’s team and staff in Atlanta, Georgia. They’ll continue attending University, but they’ve been assigned as interns to work virtually on specific projects. Lexi Gregory will be a project manager, while Allison Stevens and Savannah Cunningham will work on marketing.
Allison attends West Virginia University where she is studying Exercise physiology with hopes of becoming a Physical Therapist or a Physicians Assistant. Lexi is in the Nursing Program of West Virginia University Parkersburg and Savannah is majoring in Exercise Science.
Allison, Lexi and Savannah will be working with industry leaders and educators and will have the opportunity to be in on the ground floor of seeing the birth of the American Medicine Company, for which Crystal has determined to see it built in West Virginia. AMC will hopefully serve to provide the three medications of critical need in the United States to treat blood pressure, diabetes and thyroid disease. Currently these medications are being made in China and India with only a 30 day supply on hand in America. Should relations fail with either country, America would be in trouble. AMC may be viewed as a rescuer of America’s health. I
The journey of AMC was described during Saturday night’s staff gathering when Nicole Monachino, the General Counsel and Vice President of Business Operations for Quality Executive Partners, Inc. reminded staff of where they had came from and the direction they are going. Nicole, Brian Duncan, COO and Crystal tag teamed their story of success filled with world travels, national political leaders, million and billion dollar investments and a comedy of characters that entertained the crowd and allowed the three Calhoun College students a glimpse of the industry they were about to enter that was unlike anything in their small town, at least for now.
On Sunday morning, back in the conference setting at the Greenbrier Resort, Allison, Lexi and Savannah sat before the QxP staff, with Crystal and Teresa Overton to tell their story of life in Calhoun County, West Virginia. A slide show of the progress on the Calhoun County High School/Calhoun County Community Center as well as the current County wide growing pains was presented as the Calhoun crew shared their parts of the story. What captivated my attention was a lesson that I’m unsure as to whether the girls learned it from their parents, Crystal, or it’s in the nature of “Houners,” to not change who you are. Each of them were confident and comfortable in where they had come from. They had yet to experience the intrigue told in the stories the night before, but their story of small town life, the struggles of growing up in a declining economic town and the work ethic instilled in them because of the examples set before them was every bit as interesting as the tales of their narrative predecessors and soon to be colleagues.
I had less than 24 hours in the Greenbrier setting with the Calhoun University gals, Crystal, Teresa and the Executives of QXP. But I there long enough to garner what I always do when I’m with Crystal, more hope, more promise and a reminder that somebody’s were once nobody’s that took the initiative to change the world around them into something better.
